Abstract
Floating Wetland Treatments have the potential to provide significantly greater stormwater pollution removal rates per unit area compared to constructed wetlands or other treatment systems. As FWTs do not require additional earthworks or land uptake, they can also offer this increased pollution removal performance at significantly lower costs. In addition, the use of floating wetlands in stormwater retention ponds does not affect their hydrological processes or performances. This paper describes an innovative research study currently underway in Australia to evaluate the performance of a floating wetland system used to treat the stormwater runoff from a 10-ha urban catchment in Australia. The experimental design of the study is unique on a number of levels. Firstly, the experimental design of the study allows the performance of the new floating wetland system to be monitored and analysed during storm events. The experimental design also incorporates an array of impermeable baffles, which directs all of the stormwater runoff through the floating wetlands, eliminating the short-circuiting problems experienced in previous studies. This approach effectively makes the floating wetland an on-line treatment system. This setup enables real-time water sampling to be accurately undertaken to evaluate the pollution removal performance of the system.