Hydraulic Residence Time in a Prototype Free Water Surface Constructed Wetland

A prototype surface flow constructed wetland was built in the upstream area of reclaimed tidal lands to improve the water quality of Lake Sihwa by treating severely polluted stream water. In this study, a tracer test using rhodamine-WT was performed to investigate the flow characteristics and to quantify the observed hydraulic residence time (HRT) for a high-lying cell in the Banwol wetland of the Sihwa constructed wetland. The tracer test indicated that even if flow was mainly observed in the open water area of the Banwol wetland, water flowed continuously in the vegetative area and there was no dead zone. The calculated HRT (51.3 hrs), calculated by dividing the wetland volume by the wetland inflow, exceeded the observed HRT (38.7 hrs), since the short-circuiting of flux resulting from irregular topography and vegetation was not reflected in the calculated HRT. The exit tracer concentration curves were reproduced well by both the plug flow with dispersion and tanks-in-series models, indicating that the performance of the Banwol wetland can be estimated accurately using these models.