Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal from Eutrophic Surface Water by Constructed Multi-media Floating Islands

Nitrogen and phosphorus are the chief pollutants of our aquatic systems which may be resulted from different contamination sources and could cause serious environmental and ecological problems. Effective approaches for removing nitrogen and phosphorus from an aquatic system, particularly from surface water, is called for imminently. A new in-situ remediation measure of constructed floating islands has been developed and tested through the field experiments recently. Four pilot-scale settings with the different components and structures were constructed and operated in parallel one of which is called the constructed multi-media floating island in which multi-layers of substrate fillers were placed. The contaminated water taken directly from a river containing richly nitrogen and phosphorus was used for those experiments. It was noticed that the removal rates of both nitrogen and phosphorus in water in the setting of the constructed multi-media floating island were greater than those in others.