Tomato (Lycopersicum sculentum) production in sub surface flow constructed wetlands for domestic wastewater treatment in rural a colombian community

Abstract The sustainability issues related to food security and use of land, water and energy resources provide impetus to develop treatment technologies that are sensitive to these issues. To advance tropical studies, with an emphasis on sustainability, a small pilot-scale integrated wastewater treatment facility, was designed and built on a small farm in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia). The system consists of a septic tank, followed in series, by 5 subsurface-flow wetlands, a single surface-flow wetland and a terminal storage lagoon. The efficiency of the pilot plant was studied over a three-year period to evaluate water quality dynamics as a function of hydraulic loading rate, elapsed time and vegetation management. The objective of this study (year II), was to evaluate the comparative efficacy of the treatment units, planted with tomatoes (Lycopersicum sculentum). The results revealed the 5-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were above 41%, coliform bacteria removal was 46 -81%. No ammonium nitrogen (NH4+-N) removal (< 1%) and phosphorus removal PO4−3-P was of 10%. A relatively high production of tomatoes (730 g/m2) was obtained in comparison to a traditional crop in a tropical country. These preliminary results will aid in formulating technical design criteria and operational guidelines of constructed wetland technologies for treatment and reuse of domestic wastewater below tropical conditions.