Domestic wastewater treatment in rural parts of turkey natural treatment systems constructed wetlands

Water and food demands are ever increasing with rapidly increasing world population. There is an increased stress placed on limited water resources. Besides, agricultural, domestic and industrial sectors are in continuous competition for limited water resources. Continuously polluted waters, decreasing water resources due to global warming and climate chance, increasing labor and energy costs all brought the water and treatment technologies into the first place of the world’s agenda. To overcome the water-related problems, water losses in agricultural, domestic and industrial uses should be prevented, effective and efficient water use should be provided and possible use of wastewater and treated water should be investigated. Wastewaters are most of the time discharged into seas, rivers and other water bodies without any treatments due to high treatment costs both in Turkey and throughout the world. These systems are specially designed systems imitating natural wetlands and include soil, plant and microorganisms to remove pollutants from wastewaters. An excavated constructed wetland basin is lined with compacted clay or synthetic membrane and filled with graded sand-gravel substrate. Today, constructed wetlands are widely used to treat domestic wastewaters, agricultural wastewaters, industrial wastewater and runoff waters. In present study, general issues to be considered in design, construction, operation and maintenance of constructed wetlands commonly used in rural parts of Turkey for domestic wastewater treatment purposes were assessed and potential mistakes made in their design, construction, operation and maintenance were pointed out and possible solutions were proposed to overcome the problems experienced in different phases of these systems.