Hydraulic analysis of cell-network treatment wetlands

SummaryWhen individual cells of a multiple-cell treatment wetland are hydraulically connected, the wetland has a cell-network structure. The hydraulic performance of treatment wetlands is often characterized using tracer residence time distributions (RTDs) measured between the wetland inlet and outlet, such that the wetland is considered as a single hydraulic unit, regardless of the extent of networking between individual internal cells. This work extends the single hydraulic unit approach to enable the specification of moments and RTD parameters for individual cells, or clusters of cells, within the cell-network based on inert tracer tests with injection only at the network inlet. Hydraulic performance is quantified in terms of hydraulic efficiency and travel time dimensionless variance using both the method of moments and RTD modeling. Cell-network analysis was applied to a case study from the Orlando Easterly Wetland (OEW), demonstrating the improvement in hydraulic performance of individual wetland cells following wetland restoration activities. Furthermore, cell-network analysis indicated that the location of water quality sampling station locations within the cell network can significantly affect the accuracy of pollutant removal effectiveness estimation when the individual sample station RTD does not represent the hydraulic unit RTD. At the OEW, it was determined that historical nutrient removal effectiveness estimation may be underestimated for one area and overestimated for another, and recommendations were provided for sample station locations to minimize future performance estimation errors.