Estimating phosphorus removal in lakes using marsh wetlands

The objective of this study was to develop a modified simplest seasonal model that predicts phosphorus removal efficiency for lakes using marsh wetland system using lake waters. The proposed model calculates the wetland removal efficiency and total outflow phosphorus (TPout) concentrati- on as a function of the soluble and nonsoluble reactive phosphorus (SRP and NSRP respectively) while considering the accumulation mechanisms. The observed and predicted TPout concentrations compared reasonably which suggest that empirical models can be adapted to estimate the phosphorus removal efficiency of the marsh wetlands. The results also indicate that TPout concentrations decreased exponentially with time through the wetland and decreasing the surface hydraulic loading rate of the system would increase the removal efficiency of phosphorus. It was observed that about 78% of the total phosphorus and 77% of the soluble phosphorus content within the water column was removed with about 19% of the total phosphorus removed within the first 5 days (13% of the system detention time).