Author : Rasha El Gohary and Müfit Bahadir

Constructed wetlands are capable of effectively reducing many typical pollutants in industrial and municipal effluents, such as Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), suspended solids, and nutrients. This type of technology relies on the naturally occurring energies of the sun and wind. The performance of the in-stream wetland treatment system under Egyptian conditions expected to be equivalent to the primary to secondary conventional treatment and based on the designed detention time and aquatic species used. The success of this technique will yield the design criteria for construction of replicates at other drains. This will also allow using constructed wetlands for the reclamation of drainage water for irrigation and for the treatment of sewage water for decentralized communities. The wetland demonstrates an innovative low-cost approach for improving water quality that will lead Egypt to self-sufficiency in this kind of biotechnology. The objective of this paper is to review concepts of economic evaluation with emphasis on evaluation criteria that could use appropriately for the in-stream wetland projects. Such as benefit/cost ratio, to identify in stream wetland costs (capital costs, and running costs) to apply relevant evaluation criteria for reaching a rough estimate of the economic viability of the project, and for recommendations regarding viability of the project. In addition, the paper represents the agricultural production and land use in the study area and surrounded districts in order to duplicate this technique in the area surrounded to get benefit of the drains in beak demand by this new technique that could increase the irrigation production as well. It is concluded that from the research outcomes the conventual Benefit-Cost (B/C) = 12.7, that means every US$ be paid in this project will get gain of US$ 12.7, and the modified B\C = 14.53, that means every US$ be paid in this project will get gain of US$ 14.53. The two methods of B/C give good results for this project. In addition, wetland operation produces two major types of by-products, which could converted to sellable products: Sediments from treatment beds used to make bricks; harvested biomass from treatment cells may composted as compost or could sold directly as animal feed. In addition, the tangible benefits of the technique will Increase agricultural production, quality improvement, and cost reduction. Moreover, Intangible Benefits created outside the project itself will create new job opportunities, better health, reduced incidence of waterborne diseases, and cause environmental improvements.

Keywords: Non-conventional Wastewater Treatment, Constructed Wetland, Economics Evaluation Method, Cost Benefit Analysis, Project Viability, Agricultural Production, Land Use

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.7, No.4 (Aug-2017)