ABSTRACT
The shock loads resulting from intermittent discharges of separately sewered stormwater and combined sewers can often seriously impair the quality of receiving waters, particularly in the case of lakes and semistagnant waters. This chapter describes the potential pollution control performance with regard to heavy metals of a macrophytic community within constructed urban wetland based on a comparison of laboratory and field studies. Water samples were extracted with concentrated nitric acid, followed by metal analysis using anodic stripping voltammetry. Tissue metal load distributions have been determined for both dosing experiments and the field study and clearly indicate that the major metal bioaccumulation target area is the rhizome. Both the dosing and field results provide evidence of metal uptake, with target accumulation in the rhizosphere and root zones. The field and dosing studies suggest that metals will be taken up on the increased sediment-root surfaces and will be, at least to some extent, immobilized.
