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Journal of Environmental Informatics

Online ISSN 1684-8799 / Print ISSN 1726-2135

 

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   Volume 15   Number 2   June  2010 = non-subscribed

doi:10.3808/jei.201000167 About DOIs

JEI 15(2) 2010, Pages 62-73  

© 2010 ISEIS. All rights reserved.

Emergy Based Ecological Assessment of Constructed Wetland for Municipal Wastewater Treatment: Methodology and Application to the Beijing Wetland

Z. M. Chen1*, X. H. Xia2*, H. S. Tang3, S. C. Li4 and Y. Deng5

  1. State Key Laboratory of Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  2. School of Economics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  3. Department of Civil Engineering, City College, City University of New York, NY 10031, USA
  4. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100875, China
  5. Key Lab for Ecological Environment of the National Ministry of Agriculture, China Agriculture University, Beijing 100083, China

*Corresponding author. Tel: +86 10 52764490 Fax: +86 10 62754280 Email: chenzhanming@pku.edu.cn, xia.email@yahoo.com.cn

 

Abstract

This paper improves the traditional emergy method, and presents an ecological assessment for a constructed wetland that is designed for municipal wastewater treatment. The improvement is made by redefining the ecological value of wastewater, using renovated trasformities, and considering the ecological discounting effect. The modified method is applied to assess the Beijing Wetland, a typical constructed wetland in northern China. A parallel monetary based assessment is also carried out to investigate the difference between ecological and economic perspectives. Results show that the Beijing Wetland maintains a positive ecological profit while the discount rate is below 15.58%, and economic deficit will not occur until the discount rate reaches an unusually high level of 41.21%. In the scenario of a yearly discount rate of 5%, the emergy cost to treat one cubic meter of wastewater by the Beijing Wetland is calculated to be 4.53E+10 sej, which is equivalent to 0.01 em$, and is much lower than that by the traditional treatment technology. Moreover, both ecological and economic assessments suggest the application of constructed wetland is profitable and thus should be promoted on a larger scale for municipal use of wastewater treatment if the discount rate does not exceed 15%.


Keywords: ecological assessment, constructed wetland, municipal wastewater treatment, emergy, waste, transformity, discount

 

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Cite this paper as: Z. M. Chen, X. H. Xia, H. S. Tang, S. C. Li and Y. Deng, 2010. Emergy Based Ecological Assessment of Constructed Wetland for Municipal Wastewater Treatment: Methodology and Application to the Beijing Wetland. Journal of Environmental Informatics, 15(2), 62-73. doi:10.3808/jei.201000167


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