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Modelling of a paludiculture system for filtering excess nutrients on farmlands in Dutch polder landscapes

Murugan, Hari (2020) Modelling of a paludiculture system for filtering excess nutrients on farmlands in Dutch polder landscapes.

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Abstract:	Phytoremediation has been emerging as a cost efficient and an effective solution for filtering excess nutrients from agricultural run-off. The concept of phytoremediation was applied in this thesis to remove excess nutrients (N and P) from farmlands in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. Paludiculture plants that have the potential to yield high biomass and ability to remove the excess nutrients were studied. A model was developed using STELLA architecture to understand and analyse the factors that influence the removal mechanisms in order to design an effective system for nutrient removal. Based on theoretical calculations, using T. latifolia as vegetation over approximately 3% of total land cover would result in the removal of 42% of N and 37% of P of the inflow concentrations with the biomass capacity in the range of 4-22 t/Ha/yr. Using P. australis over the same area would result in the removal of 39% of N and 33% of P of the inflow concentration with the biomass capacity in the range of 6-18 t/ha/yr. The most important factors that influence nutrient removal were found to be nutrient loading rates, type of vegetation used and hydraulic retention time. For vegetation growth, the factors that caused major influences were seasonal periodicity and harvesting period. The motivation of farmers and problems that need to be encountered while having the paludiculture crops on the farmlands are also discussed in this paper. KEYWORDS: Phytoremediation, Paludiculture, Peatlands restoration, Nutrient removal.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	43 environmental science
Programme:	Environmental and Energy Management MSc (69319)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/83020
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