The April 2015 issue of Water Environment Research (WER) includes an open-access article investigating the effectiveness of a man-made wetland system, consisting of linked basins, in local flood control and contaminant filtration.

According to WER Editor-in-Chief Tim Ellis, “the authors used a combination of field and lab experiments to characterize the retention and removal of iron, phosphate, and nitrate. Residence time and subsurface flow within the wetland system were found to be key indicators of performance. In addition, rainfall events of a certain magnitude were found to release significant amounts of previously retained phosphate and nitrate.” Read more in “Effectiveness of Man-Made Wetland Systems in Filtering Contaminants from Urban Runoff in Milledgeville, Georgia.”

Selected WER articles such as this one are available for free on a monthly basis through an open-access program.