Relationships of nitrous oxide fluxes with water quality parameters in free water surface constructed wetlands

Abstract

The effects of chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration in the influent on nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, together with the relationships between N₂O and water quality parameters in free water surface constructed wetlands, were investigated with laboratory-scale systems. N₂O emission and purification performance of wastewater were very strongly dependent on COD concentration in the influent, and the total N₂O emission in the system with middle COD influent concentration was the least. The relationships between N₂O and the chemical and physical water quality variables were studied by using principal component scores in multiple linear regression analysis to predict N₂O flux. The multiple linear regression model against principal components indicated that different water parameters affected N₂O flux with different COD concentrations in the influent, but nitrate nitrogen affected N₂O flux in all systems.

Keywords

free water surface constructed wetland / nitrous oxide emission / water quality parameter / principal component analysis / multiple linear regression

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50508019) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China–Japan Science and Technology Agency (NSFC-JST) Strategic Joint Research Project (Grant No. 50721140117). The authors would like to thank Dr. Yujing Mu from the Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (RCEES, China), for his assistance in gas analysis.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg