Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng

Multiphysics modelling of ow dynamics, biolm development and

wastewater treatment in a subsurface vertical ow constructed
wetland mesocosm
Amin Reza Rajabzadeh a , Raymond L. Legge a , Kela P. Weber b, *
a
b

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
Environmental Sciences Group, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario K7K 7B4, Canada,

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 7 April 2014
Received in revised form 17 September 2014
Accepted 30 September 2014
Available online xxx

A robust computational uid dynamics (CFD) model accounting for both spatial and temporal dynamics
of a subsurface vertical ow treatment wetland system was developed by combining uid transport,
solute transport, biokinetics, biolm development, and biolm detachment/sloughing using COMSOL
MultiphysicsTM. The local porosity of the porous media was calculated based on the estimated biolm
development over time. The biolm development sub-model considered both organic pollutant
metabolism/degradation as a mechanism for microbial growth and the effect of uid shear stress on the
local biolm detachment. The inuence of biolm accumulation on the permeability of the porous media
was considered using the KozeneyCarman relation. The permeability of the porous media was estimated
by calibrating the model against experimental tracer data that had been collected in a full waterrecirculation batch operation. As the biolm developed from start-up, removal efciency of readily
biodegradable organic matter improved during the rst 10 weeks of operation while no signicant
change was predicted after 10 weeks. A dead-zone region was predicted near the bottom of the system
opposite to the outow port after 100 days of operation attributed to exponential biolm growth and low
biolm detachment rates. A decrease of 95% in the advective transport of organic matter in the dead-zone
region occurred after 280 days of operation. No appreciable biolm accumulation was predicted in the
region near the outlet due to the high uid shear stress acting on the biolm surface. The averaged
porosity of the mesocosm decreased by 6.6% after 365 days of operation while the local porosity in the
dead-zone region decreased by 71%. Good agreement was found between the averaged porosity of the
entire system and experimental data. This is the rst model to integrate hydrodynamics, solute transport,
biokinetics relating to pollutant removal, biolm development, and biolm detachment into a
comprehensive model. Although computationally intensive, this is the rst model to predict bio-clogging
processes in a spatial manner similar to what would be realistically expected.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Constructed wetland
Computational uid dynamics
Biolm
Microbial communities
Porosity
Clogging
Wetland hydrology
Wetland modelling

1. Introduction
Constructed wetlands (CWs) are engineered ecosystems
comprised of vegetated media and colonized microorganisms that
employ natural processes that can be used to assist in treating
wastewater (Vymazal and Krpfelov, 2008). Constructed wetlands are a proven and effective technology to remove organic
matter, nutrients, pathogens, and other pollutants from wastewater (Garcia et al., 2010).
One of the operational problems associated with CWs is
clogging of the granular media (Caselle-Osorio et al., 2007;

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kela.weber@rmc.ca (K.P. Weber).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2014.09.122
0925-8574/ 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Knowles et al., 2011 Knowles et al., 2011). The main contributors

to clogging are accumulation of particulate matter and biolm
development, with biolm development being largely the result of
microbial attachment and growth on the support media (Langergraber et al., 2003). Clogging has various effects on the
hydrodynamic characteristics of CWs by lowering the porosity
and permeability in specic areas of a wetland bed (Kadlec and
Wallace, 2008; Pedescoll et al., 2009, 2011; Sharp et al., 1999;
Weber and Legge 2011). Changes in the hydrodynamic character
results in preferential water ow along the treatment wetland and
dead-zone regions decreasing overall contact time and thus
treatment efciency (Garcia et al., 2005; Persson et al., 1999;
Platzer and Mauch, 1997). Previous work has focused on theoretical
models that take into account the effect of suspended solids on
clogging of the porous media without consideration of the effects

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A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

The overall objective of this work was to explore the effect of

biolm development on the wetlands hydrodynamic characteristics to ultimately better understand water treatment variation
and dynamics for full scale CWs. A robust computational uid
dynamics (CFD) model was developed that accounted for spatial
and temporal dynamics within a treatment wetland mesocosm by
combining uid transport, solute transport, biokinetics, biolm
development, and biolm detachment sub-models using
COMSOL1 Multiphysics.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental set-up
The wetland mesocosms used to calibrate and validate the
model have been described in detail by Weber and Legge (2011).
The wetland mesocosms consisted of a PVC cylinder (80 cm tall;
25 cm diameter) lled with pea gravel (average equivalent
diameter of 1 cm, 80% limestone) and operated to 70 cm with
water (Fig. 1). Water was pumped (a) from the lower portion of
the wetland to the upper region (b), ensuring continuous cycling
of the feed as it moved downwards (c). The wetland was tted
with an injection (d) and sample (e) port for sampling or tracer
injections. The mesocosms could be drained using the bottom
port (f). Water was fed to the top of the system 10 cm below the
surface of the gravel via a perforated PVC pipe. The top 10 cm of
gravel simply covered the feed inlet pipe (no water passed
through this top 10 cm region). The ow regime for modeling
purposes in these systems can therefore be described as saturated
(top 10 cm ignored as no ow occurs here). Oxygen was
constantly supplied to these systems through mixing and
diffusion at the sampling port during water cycling from the
bottom to the top of the system and was consistently measured as
45 mg/L. Each week the mesocosm was lled with fresh
simulated wastewater and operated under constant recycle for
1 week. The simulated wastewater consisted of
1 g/L molasses,
0.049 g/L urea, 0.0185 g/L NH4H2PO4, yielding a COD of
500 mg/L
and a COD:N:P ratio of
100:5:1 (Weber and Legge, 2011). After
1 week the mesocosm was drained before rell and the porosity
was measured (measured as the amount of water required to ll

25 cm

de

70 cm

of biolm development (Blazejewski and Murat-Blazejewska,

1997; Kawanishi et al., 1990; Langergraber et al., 2003). These
models result in the overestimation of clogging time (Langergraber
et al., 2003), possibly due to biolm dynamics being ignored in said
models.
Good engineering design of CWs requires insight into the
internal chemical and biological processes as well as an
understanding of the hydrological characteristics of the system.
Tracer experiments have been used to study the effect of design
parameters on the hydrodynamic behavour of CWs (Huang et al.,
2005; Molle et al., 2006; Suliman et al., 2006, 2007). Tracer
experiment methodologies can be relatively expensive and often
impossible to perform in eld situations; therefore, mathematical
models are increasingly sought to study the hydraulic characteristics of many subsurface environments, including CWs. A variety
of analytical and numerical models are available to predict water
and solute transport processes in porous media. Analytical
solutions of mass transport are limited to simplied transport
systems with linear reaction rates (Higashi and Pigford, 1980; van
Genuchten, 1985). Since a large number of physicochemical and
biological processes occur simultaneously in CWs, analytical
models provide limited insight into their performance aspects.
As a result, mechanistic models with numerical solutions are
required to capture the complexity of CWs (Langergraber and
imnek, 2005, 2012; Llorens et al., 2011; Mburu et al., 2012;
Sams and Garca, 2013) rather than simple rst order decay
models (Kadlec and Wallace, 2008; Stein et al., 2006; Tomenko
et al., 2007). First order decay models are site specic and neglect
the effect of important factors such as ow behavior, microbial
growth/biolm development, and solids accumulation on the
operation of CWs (Garcia et al., 2010). The majority of reported
mechanistic models for CWs have been developed based on
advanced activated sludge biokinetic models (ASMs) proposed by
Henze et al. (2000) to predict the biochemical transformation and
elimination of dissolved organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorous. A macroscale biolm sub-model was considered in the biokinetic model of Sams and Garca (2013) to simulate the
development of different microbial communities in CWs, which
was not considered in earlier models proposed by Langergraber
and imnek (2005, 2012),),Llorens et al. (2011), and Mburu et al.
(2012). The biolm sub-model accounted for the pore volume
reduction that results from biolm growth and accumulation of
inert solids. Although biolm development has been reported to
signicantly affect the hydrodynamic characteristics of porous
media, constant hydrodynamic parameters were applied in their
proposed model. The work resulted in a proposed cartridge theory
for clogging by Sams and Garca (2014). The model accounted for
the interaction between the bacterial community and the
accumulation of inert solids. Two linear negative feedback
functions were introduced to the bacteria growth rate expression
to account for limitless growth of bacteria and porosity reduction
as a result of solids accumulation. The solids accumulation limited
available space and substrates for bacterial growth. Results
suggested that the zone containing an active microbial community
moves toward the outlet of the subsurface horizontal ow wetland
as a result of progressive clogging with inert solids. Although the
cartridge model did not, from a hydrodynamics perspective, give a
prediction similar to what is seen in practice, the model
represented a progression towards linking biolm and solids
accumulation to constructed wetland performance and function.
The effects of ow behavior and local shear stress on biolm
detachment, which are governed by biolm development and pore
volume reduction rate, were neglected in the model proposed by
Sams and Garca (2014) possibly contributing to the movingcartridge type overestimation of clogging in their model.

Fig. 1. Unplanted wetland mesocosm schematic. Water was circulated via a small
centrifugal pump (a) to the mesocosm (b) and allowed to percolate through the pea
gravel bed and collected at the bottom (c). An atmosphere exposed port served as an
injection (d) and sampling (e) point. A drainage port was located near the bottom (f)
for mesocosm drainage.

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

109

@

e r rru Q br
@t p

(1a)

the systems after a complete drain). For calibration of the

hydrodynamic characteristics of the model, a tracer study was
performed using 10 mL of a 200 g/L sodium bromide solution. The
tracer concentration was measured based on the conductivity of
the solution passing through the sampling port over time. The
removal of organics from the simulated wastewater was
evaluated using chemical oxygen demand (COD) according to
Standard Method 5220D. Unplanted wetland mesocosms were
considered for model calibration to identify the porosity change
with biolm development in an environment not affected by
plant root development, root exudates or root degradation
products.

2.2. Model development

2.2.1. Governing equations
A variety of analytical and numerical models are available to
predict water and solute transfer processes in porous media. The
free and porous media ow interface in COMSOL (COMSOL, Inc.,
USA) was used to estimate ow behavior in a saturated porous
media. This interface uses the NavierStokes equations for
describing the ow in open regions, and the Brinkman equations
for the ow in porous regions. Darcys law has been used widely
in the literature to describe velocity and pressure proles of ow
in porous media (Liolios et al., 2012; Sams and Garca, 2013;
Llorens et al., 2011). One of the main driving forces for using the
Darcy equation is its ease of use and lighter computational
requirements in numerical models. In the present study the
authors opted for a more computationally demanding, yet more
physically accurate description of uid ow. Darcys law provides
a linear relationship between hydraulic gradient and velocity of
ow in porous media by ignoring the viscous and inertia effects
to the uid ow. For the situation considered here, water is
owing through a coarse media (pea gravel). The relationship
between velocity and hydraulic gradient can be non-linear for
ow through coarse sand and gravel, therefore the Darcy
equation was not used (Reddy and Rao, 2006; Crites et al.,
2014). The Brinkman model extends Darcys law to include the
viscous transport and inertia term in the momentum balance.
The dependent variables in the Brinkman equations are the
directional velocities and pressure. The ow in porous media is
governed by a combination of the continuity equation and
momentum balance equation, which together form the Brinkman equation:

r @u
u
ur
rp
ep
ep @t



 2
1 n
r m ru ruT  mr  uI 
3
m ep


Q br u F

(1b)

where m denotes the dynamic viscosity of the uid (kg/(m s)), u

is the velocity vector (m/s), r is the density of the uid (kg/m3), p is
the pressure (Pa), ep is the porosity, k is the permeability of the
porous media (m2), and Qbr is a mass source or mass sink
(kg/(m3 s)). Inuence of gravity and other volume forces was
accounted for via the force term F (kg/(m2 s2)). A single phase liquid
ow was considered in the model because the mesocosms were
operated in a saturated vertical ow conguration. The reaction
and transport of chemical species by diffusion and advection were
calculated using Eq. (2).

@c
urc rDrc R
@t

(2)

where c is the concentration of the species (g/m3), D denotes the

isotropic molecular diffusivity (m2/s), R is a reaction rate
expression for the species (g/(m3 s)), and u is the velocity vector
(m/s) from the solution of Eq. (1).
Non-uniform triangular mesh elements with different resolutions were adopted with the mesh density being larger near the
edge boundaries. Dense boundary layer mesh elements were
created in the normal direction of the boundaries to capture the
thin mass boundary layers close to wall boundaries. COMSOL
Multiphysics applies nite element principles to discretize the
partial differential equations into a set of differential algebraic
equations. The direct solver MUMPS (multifrontal massively
parallel sparse direct solver) was used to solve the resulting linear
system. MUMPS solves linear systems with the multi-frontal
method and direct LU (lower-upper) factorization of the sparse
matrix. The simulation was assumed to converge when the
weighted absolute residual norm was less than 105. The model
was run to simulate a one year start-up period. Each modelled
week took approximately 30 min in real-time on a 6.00GB RAM,
CoreTM i5-2.5 GHz laptop.

Table 1
Coefcients of biokinetic model (Langergraber and imnek, 2005) and physical properties used in the CFD model.
Name

Expression (units)

Description

mmax,H

6 (1/d)
1000 (g/m3)
0.63
1 104 (m2/d)
300 (g/m3)
0 (g/m3)
175 (g/m3)
0.01 (g/m3)
997 (kg/m3)
0.000843 (Pa  s)
0.365 (1)
80 (kg/m3)
0.25 (m)
0.7 (m)
1 (cm)
404 (1/m)
4.5  109 (m2)
452 (m/d)

Maximum growth rate

Half maximum rate
True yields (biomass produced/substrate consumed)
Substrate diffusion in water
Initial readily biodegradable organic matter
Initial slowly biodegradable organic matter
Inert chemical oxygen demand
Initial heterotroph concentration
Water density
Water viscosity
Initial void fraction
Biolm density
Mesocosm diameter
Mesocosm height
Average gravel diameter
Specic surface area
Intrinsic permeability
Hydraulic conductivity

Ks
YH
D
SS0
CS0
CI
XH0

rw
mw

e0
rbulk
Dcol
Lcol
dp
M
K
k

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A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

Dispersion in porous media occurs due to varying pore sizes,

varying ow velocity in pore spaces, and tortuous ow paths
(Selker et al., 1999). In large scale (macroscopic) models average
velocity is used to describe advection, while dispersion is
accounted for using a correction term called dispersivity.
Dispersivity is unique to each specic modelling situation and
needs to be t (usually through tracer studies and model
calibration). Because the present study used a computationally
robust and heavily discritized geometry actual local velocities are
calculated (water velocity and direction is calculated in each of the
1906 elements), therefore no bulk correction/tting factor, such as
dispersivity, is required. Dispersive phenomena is well described
using the fundamental approach applied here as shown in Fig. 2
(tracer test tting). For a fundamental description and a direct
comparison of microscopic (present study) and macroscopic (eld
scale) dispersive ux modeling see Selker et al. (1999) or other
similar fundamental porous media literature.

2.2.2. Chemical and biological reactions in the biokinetic model

The processes considered in the biokinetic model were
hydrolysis, mineralization of organic matter, and a lysis process
for microorganisms (Langergraber and imnek, 2005; Henze
et al., 2000). Heterotrophic bacteria (XH) consume readily
biodegradable organic matters (SS) and oxygen to grow aerobically.
A Monod type function with a limiting factor of organic matter was
used to express the growth of the heterotrophs. Oxygen was in
excess throughout the mesocosms studied here due to the vertical
recycle operation, and water mixing at the sampling port. For
systems with multiple limiting factors such as oxygen, organic
matter, and other substrates/nutrients, Monod dual-substrate
limitation kinetics are recommended (Wynn and Liehr, 2001;
Brovelli et al., 2011).

dX H
Ss
mmax;H
XH
dt
K s Ss

(3)

where mmax,H is the maximum aerobic growth rate, Ss is readily

biodegradable organic matter concentration (a portion of the total
COD present), and Ks is the half maximum rate. Table 1 summarizes
the coefcients used in the biokinetics model. Lysis of the
heterotrophic organisms results in slowly biodegradable organic
matter. A simple linear relation was dened to represent this
process.
dX H bina;H X H

(4)

where bina,H represents the lysis rate coefcient.

Hydrolysis of slowly biodegradable organic matters (Cs) to
readily biodegradable organic matter was considered in the model
using Eq. (5).
dSs
Cs =XH
kh
XH
dt
kx Cs =XH

(5)

where kh and kx are hydrolysis rate constant and saturation/

inhibition coefcient for hydrolysis, respectively which are listed
in Table 1. Readily biodegradable organic matter removal was
therefore dened as
dSs
1
Ss
 mmax;H
XH
YH
dt
K s Ss

(6)

where YH is yield coefcient representing the stoichiometric link

between biomass growth and organic matter (OM) consumption
and is dened as biomass production/OM consumption (Langergraber and imnek, 2005).

Fig. 2. Simulated and experimental tracer curves (A) and spatial distribution (B) for a tracer concentration (1 g/L initial concentration) as a function of time.

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

The spatial growth of microorganisms in the mesocosm

geometric domain was dened using a distributed ODE interface
in COMSOL. The interface allowed for the integration of the
ordinary differential equations of 3 and 4 for microbial growth in
any region of the mesocosm as a separate phase (representing
biolm/solid media) from the uid phase while the hydrolysis of
slowly biodegradable organic matters and the removal of readily
biodegradable organic matter (Eqs. (5) and (6) were dened in the
uid ow phase (Eq. (2)).

111

2.2.3. Biomass detachment rate

Rittmann (1982) proposed that biolm detachment (or loss) is
governed by uid shear stress acting on the biolm surface and
developed an experimentally based equation to calculate biolm
detachment. According to this equation, an increase in the ow
rate causes a decrease in biolm volume surrounding substrate
media and thus an increase in local pore volume. The effect of ow
behavior on the biolm detachment rate was considered in the bioclogging sub-model via Eq. (7) proposed by Rittmann (1982).

Fig. 3. Velocity transects along the y-axis (A) and x-axis (B) after 8 weeks.

112

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

mu1  e3
dp2 e3 M

!0:58

where bdet,H is the biomass detachment rate constant, u is the local

velocity (cm/d),e is local porosity, dp is averaged spherical gravel
diameter (cm), M is specic surface area of the porous medium
(1/cm) andm is viscosity in g/cm/d. A uniform gravel size with a
spherical shape was used for determining M.

to shear stress and biolm detachment/sloughing in each

individual element. The sloughing of biolm then feeds back into
the hydrodynamic model recalculating water velocity based on the
new available pore space. If OM is then able to move again to this
local element, biolm growth can re-occur, thus decreasing the
pore space available. It is through these interacting models for
hydrodynamics, solute transport, biokinetics, biolm growth, and
biolm sluoghing that the multiphysics model is able to spatially
and temporally describe the bio-clogging phenomena.

2.3. Hydrodynamic characteristics of the mesocosm

2.4. Boundary conditions

Biolm was assumed to consist of bacteria as a solid biolm

phase growing on the gravel within the pores. The local porosity of
the porous media was calculated at each time interval based on the
estimated biolm concentration (XH) using Eq. (8). The local
volume of the biolm was calculated over time from the calculated
biomass concentration (XH) known biolm density (rBiolm), and
initial void fraction (e0) (Eq. (8)). The velocity and pressure prole
was updated over time by solving Eq. (1)a and b.


X x; y; z
ex; y; t e0 1  H
(8)

At the inlet of the mesocosm, the ow was assumed to be fully

developed and a parabolic ow was specied. The maximum
velocity (vz,max) of the inlet parabolic ow was computed from the
feed owrate and the dimension of the inlet pipe. At the mesocosm
outlet the pressure was assumed to be atmospheric pressure (Pout),
as an open sampling port provided atmospheric exposure and
water mixing. A periodic boundary condition was considered for
the OM at the inlet and outlet to ensure mass continuity. A no slip
boundary condition was dened at the mesocosm wall.

bdet;H 2:29  106

(7)

rBioflim

Finally, the inuence of biolm growth on the permeability of

the mesocosm which resulted in reduced porosity was considered
using the KozeneyCarman relation in the following form
(Blazejewski and Murat-Blazejewska, 1997):

 

ex; y; z 3 1  ex; y; z 2
(9)
kx; y; t kt0
1  et 0
et 0
The KozenyCarman relation is the most widely used semianalytical equation in the porous media literature (developed from
capillary models) relating the permeability of a media to its
porosity, pore shape factor, and kinematic viscosity. The equation is
mainly used for homogenous granular porous media at intermediate porosities (Carman, 1937) and proved to be applicable in the
current modelling study.
COMSOL is a computationally powerful platform and was
selected due to its ability to model local hydrodynamic properties
such as water velocity. Mass balances are calculated between the
1906 mesh elements, and these elements are spatially distributed
in 2 dimensions. Using this format water velocity could be related

3. Results and discussion

The permeability of the gravel media was estimated by
calibrating the model against experimental tracer data (Fig. 2)
with readings taken at the sampling port while the system is run in
total recirculation mode. Fig. 2(A) shows the tracer concentrationtime distribution with consecutive peaks detected at each passage
corresponding to the circulation time. The peaks are due to local
tracer concentration peaks which occur before the solute is
completely mixed within the mesocosm. The mean retention time
and standard deviation of the tracer distribution were 248 s and
88 s, respectively. The spread of each peak with a standard
deviation about the mean residence time reects the extent to
which the ow deviates from theoretical plug ow. Generally a
peak with a large standard deviation reects the presence of
channeling or the presence of a re-circulating zone (Persson et al.,
1999). The maximum tracer concentrations for the rst and second
peaks were observed at approximately 220 s and 440 s, respectively. Tracer concentration leveled off after 700 s representing a
completely mixed system. Fig. 2(A) shows that the model
described the experimental tracer data with an acceptable degree
of accuracy. The mean squared error (MSE) between experimental

Fig. 4. Simulated biolm concentration (left) and biolm concentration surface plot in the mesocosm after 365 days (right).

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

113

Fig. 5. Simulated and experimental porosity (left) and porosity surface plot in the mesocosm after 365 days (right).

0 0

regions were chosen and evaluated based on the expected

difference in development due to spatial placement. Region
1 was at the outlet where a consistently large water velocity
was expected. Region 3 was selected based on its placement in an
area expected to see a lower water velocity; intuitively, Region
3 runs the risk of becoming a dead-zone due to its placement with
respect to the outlet region (as can be seen in Figs. 2 and 3B).
Region 2 was placed in the middle of the mesocosm as it was
predicted to be more indicative of an averaged mesocosm region.
The spatially averaged biolm concentration (whole system
average) increased linearly up to 150 days and leveled off after
approximately 300 days. Biolm concentration in Region 3 grew
exponentially up to 200 days, and then leveled off after 280 days.
The biolm concentration at Region 3 was approximately 3 times
greater than the averaged biolm concentration due to the low
shear stress and therefore limited biolm detachment. At the
outlet (Region 2), biolm detachment was high due to the high
uid shear stress acting on the biolm surface. Biolm concentrations of 0.1 and 32.9 mg/cm3 gravel were observed after
365 days at Regions 1 and 3, respectively. This represents
approximately a 330 times greater biolm accumulation in the
dead-zone region (Region 3) in comparison to the high shear
outlet region (Region 1). The biolm concentration value at Region

2 was close to the averaged value (3.0 mg/cm3). The balance

between biolm growth and detachment forces was the main
factor determining the biolm distribution in the mesocosm. The
velocities were 2.3  102 m/s, 5  103 m/s, and 4.5  104 m/s at
regions 13, respectively reecting signicant differences in the
biolm development in the same regions. According to Eq. (7),
biolm detachment rate was proportional to the local ow velocity
to the power of 0.58 (Rittmann, 1982).
Local porosity of the media was calculated based on the local
biolm concentration and biolm density (Eq. (8)). A biolm
density of 80 kgdrymass/m3 was selected in the calibration process to
best t the experimental porosity data of Weber and Legge (2011)
which is within the range of values reported in the literature of
8.8107.8 kg/m3 (Zhang and Bishop, 1994), 10140 kg/m3 (Bishop
et al., 1995), 60 kg/m3 (Wichern et al., 2008), and 2567 kg/m3
(Kwok et al., 1998). The simulated porosity was within acceptable
agreement with the experimental data with an R2 and MSE of
0.89 and 7.8  106, respectively.
Fig. 5 summarizes the porosity changes over time. Trends for
the spatially averaged (overall mesocosm porosity) and experimental data match quite closely over the development period. A
progressive reduction of porosity over time was observed due to
biolm development on the gravel followed by a leveling-off after

0.0008
0.0007
Advecve Flux (g/m2/s)

and estimated tracer data and R2 were 7.9  104 and 0.99,
respectively. Fig. 2(B) shows the spatial distribution of tracer along
the mesocosm in response to a tracer input and steady state ow
conditions, it can be noted that near the bottom of the mesocosm
system water ow is directed towards the outlet, leaving the
general area opposite the outlet (left hand side given Fig. 2(B))
untouched by the tracer path. Fig. 3 outlines x-axis and y-axis
velocity transects at an arbitrary time of 8 weeks, and exemplies
the ability for this model to calculate local (microscopic) velocities
in each mesh element.
Fig. 4 showsbiolm development as a concentration (mg/cm3)
within specic regions of the mesocosm over time. The initial
concentration (at time zero) of the biolm was set to a value close
to zero (1 105 mg/cm3). Fig. 4 focuses on results for three regions
in the mesocosm with the trends of biolm growth compared with
ZX ZY
the spatially averaged values 1=x  y
XH dxdy. These three

0.0006
0.0005

Region 1

0.0004

Region 2

0.0003

Region 3

0.0002
0.0001
0
0

100

200

300

Days
Fig. 6. Simulated advective ux of organic matter.

400

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A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

Fig. 7. Simulated normalized permeability (left) and normalized permeability surface plot in the mesocosm after 365 days (right).

Limited organic matter removal data is available over the same

modelled time period. Week 5 experimental OM data is included in
Fig. 8 for comparison. A general agreement between experimental
and modelled data can be seen with the exception of the 1 h data
point. With limited data it is difcult to speculate as to the reasons
for this time point discrepancy, however the general time
requirement for OM removal is reasonably calculated. The time
required to remove the OM during the tenth treatment week was
about 3 h which was 31% faster than that of week 2. No signicant
change in the OM removal curves was observed after 10 weeks of
operation. Slightly different behavior was estimated for the rst
week of operation (data not shown), the OM was estimated to be
consumed after 30 h of operation due to the low initial heterotrophic bacteria concentration (0.01 g/m3) in the mesocosm.
The model developed in this work has implications for largescale subsurface treatment wetlands where biolm development
could lead to preferential water ow or clogged regions in the
wetland. Preferential water ow could result in dead zones and
short circuiting or channelling which will have negative effects on
the treatment efciency of the system as a whole. Therefore, it is
extremely important to assess, understand, and prevent conditions
which lead to channeled ow in CWs and to consider them in the
development of models for full scale systems.

Readily biodegredable organic maer

(mg/L)

300 d of treatment. The averaged porosity decreased by 6.6% after

365 d of operation. Simulated data showed that pore volume
reduction occurs with various rates in different regions in the
mesocosm. The local porosity of media for Region 3 decreased by
71% from the initial value of 0.3650.104 after 365 d compared to
0.22% decrease for Region 1 (i.e., close to no change). Good
agreement can be seen between experimental and modelled
results for porosity. Sams and Garca (2014) predicted a moving
section of clogged pore space. Here a more isolated "dead-zone" is
predicted which is in-line with expectations and observations.
Large decreases in porosity were observed in Region 3 between
150 and 250 days. This was attributed to the combination of
exponential growth of heterotrophic bacteria in the biolm (Fig. 4)
and a lack of shear stress for biolm detachment. The exponential
growth of biolm slowed after 150 d due to the limitations of local
OM required for the growth of heterotrophic bacteria (OM ux to
the region was limited). The growth of biolm was essentially
governed by advective transport of OM to the local area. The
diffusive transport of OM was 34 orders of magnitude lower in
this region than the advective transport in other regions. The
advective transport of OM in Region 3 (Fig. 6) decreased by 82%
after 365 days of operation from 1.5  105 g/(m2 s) to 2.7  106 g/
(m2 s) which helped decrease biolm growth after 280 days. The
advective ux of OM depends signicantly on the ow behavour
and local permeability of the media (Fig. 7). Region 3 in the
mesocosm exhibited a signicant decrease in permeability during
the rst 200 d due to local biolm development. The effect of
biolm growth on the permeability of the media was considered in
the model through Eq. (9). Over time permeability of the
mesocosm in Region 2 decreased by 22% while the permeability
in Region 1 remained unchanged.
Effect of biolm development on the removal efciency of
readily biodegradable organic matter (OM) is presented in Fig. 8. As
described in the methods section, the mesocosm was drained,
relled with fresh simulated wastewater, and operated in a recycle
mode each week. Fig. 8 represents the OM concentration in the
efuent for the rst 6 h of each 1-week treatment for different
weeks. Based on the results, the time required for removal of all the
OM for a one week batch period depended on the treatment week.
The OM was removed in less than 5 h during the second week, with
decreasing time requirements as the mesocosms developed.

350
Week 2
Week 3
Week 5
Week 10
Week 20
Week 5_Exp. data

300
250
200
150
100
50
0
0

Hours
Fig. 8. Effect of biolm development on the OM removal.

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

For simplicity, and the objective being the focus of connecting

hydrological/biolm interactions and both spatial and temporal
analysis, the biochemical transformation and elimination of
dissolved nitrogen and phosphorous were not considered in the
current model. The effect of temperature, evapotranspiration, and
rainfall on the efuent pollution concentration should also be
considered in a future version of the model, as they play an
important role on the water balance of CWs (Galvo et al., 2010;
Langergraber, 2008).
The microbial metabolic activity within a biolm and the rate of
growth therein is controlled by the concentration of substrates that
are available in the biolm (Picioreanu et al., 2004). Substrates are
transported by diffusion from the bulk uid to the biolm and are
consumed by the biomass. Due to differences in transport of
substrates and the resulting penetration prole, it is expected that
biolm microorganisms are exposed to different substrate concentrations, depending on their location in the biolm (Ebert,
2006). This also has not been captured in the subject model,
however could be added to future models through a biolm submodel. In a separate study by Murphy et al. (2014), the authors
successfully captured biolm diffusion dynamics in a model
developed to predict ammonium diffusion into biolm, nitrication reaction rates, and diffusion of nitrate out of biolms. Further
investigation and development of a biolm sub-model still needs
to occur before such dynamics can be accurately added to the
model of the present study.
One of the rate-limiting components that could control biolm
growth is oxygen concentration. Some of the biological degradation processes, such as organic matter degradation and nitrication, require aerobic conditions (Langergraber, 2007). The lack of
oxygen deeper in the biolm (Bishop et al., 1995) may produce a
stable anaerobic environment (Picioreanu et al., 2004; Ebert,
2006). The biolm sub-model developed in this work will be
modied in the future work to describe some of the heterogeneous
characteristics of biolms and the resulting effect on the
biokinetics. Although oxygen was in excess throughout the
mesocosm, it is believed that oxygen could become one of the
limiting components in some regions (i.e., dead zones) and
therefore the multiple-substrate Monod equation (Wynn and
Liehr, 2001 Sun et al., 1999; Brovelli et al., 2011) is suggested as a
useful approach.
The accumulation of particulate matter (PM) in the media was
not considered in the current model because there was no PM in
the feed wastewater. Although biolm detachment contributes PM
to interstitial water, the mesocosms were completely drained each
week, and therefore the effects of PM was assumed to be negligible.
The experiments were specically designed to allow for this
quantication of the inuence of biolm development on porosity
and other hydrological characteristics.
One of the benets of the model was its ability to estimate
pollutant uxes in different areas spatially and temporally. With
the use of this feature, the effect of emerging contaminants such as
antimicrobials on the development, function and stability of
bacterial communities is planned by estimating the contaminant
contact time for different regions. Exposure to antimicrobials has
adverse effects on biolm development, the ability for the bacteria
to attach to the bed media, and the ability for standard lifesustaining metabolic processes (Weber et al., 2011). Future work
will incorporate available lab scale antibiotic exposure data into
the treatment wetland model to gain an understanding of the
effect and fate on full scale operational systems.
Many vertical ow constructed wetland systems are now
operated using drain/ll cycles, have partially saturated conditions
near the top sections, or include aeration piping for improved
treatment performance (Nivala et al., 2013). This model considers
saturated ow only. If a partially saturated ow regime is

115

encountered in the top sections of a vertical ow system the

Richards equation can easily be implemented in COMSOL and
connected to the saturated regime, this would however, require
two separate model geometries to be connected by an additional
boundary. Adding plants into the current model would not be a
simple task. Using COMSOL there is an opportunity to physically
add roots as actual geometries within the model, no ow boundary
conditions would then be set around all root geometries. The
authors have not attempted to add such a complexity to the current
model, however extended runtimes would be anticipated. Addition of plants experimentally has been shown to increase
dispersion in these types of systems (Weber and Legge, 2011); it
would be expected for the same to occur if plant geometries were
added into the current model as described.
Again it is only through the calculation of these local (in each
element) conditions that both spatial and temporal dynamics of
biolm growth was captured. No other model in the constructed
wetland literature has gone to such an extent to describe these
interacting dynamics. This is the rst model to predict bio-clogging
processes in a spatial manner similar to what would be realistically
expected. This model also marks the initiation of a method to
investigate different design aspect ratios, and how this may affect
hydrological development and contaminant transfer/treatment in
treatment wetlands.
4. Conclusions
In this study ow dynamics, biokinetics, biolm development,
and biolm detachment was incorporated into a CFD model to
study the dynamic effect of biolm development on the
hydrodynamic characteristics of a subsurface vertical ow
constructed wetland mesocosm. The biolm submodel
accounted for organic matter metabolism/degradation as a
mechanism for microbial growth and the effect of local uid
shear stress on biolm detachment. The effect of media-related
biolm development on the porosity and permeability of a
vertical ow constructed wetland mesocosm is highlighted.
Biolm development caused a preferential ow in the mesocosm
and decreased the local porosity in a dead-zone region by 71%
after 365 days of operation while the average porosity decreased
by only 6.6%. The porosity of media in the region near the outlet
remained unchanged after 365 days of treatment due to the high
biolm detachment rate. The local development of biolm in the
dead-zone region and the region near outlet was controlled by
the concentration of OM required for bacterial growth and uid
shear stress, respectively. The consumption rate of OM in the
mesocosm was found 31% faster in the 10th week than the
second week of operation due to higher biolm development
and remained approximately unchanged after 10 weeks. The
simulated average porosity was in agreement with the experimental data with the R2 and MSE values of 0.89 and 7.8  106,
respectively. Realistic bio-clogging processes where predicted,
however the model was the most computationally heavy to be
yet reported in the constructed wetland literature. With a few
modications, the model has potential for application to large
scale treatment wetlands to assess, understand, and minimize
bio-clogging.
Acknowledgements
Support from NSERC in the form of a Discovery grants to RLL and
KPW and from ORF in the way of funding from the Centre for
Control of Emerging Contaminants (CCEC) to RLL is gratefully
acknowledged. We would also like to thank Dr. Michael Hulley for
his insight during manuscript revisions.

116

A.R. Rajabzadeh et al. / Ecological Engineering 74 (2014) 107116

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