Improving the Hydraulic Effects Resulting from the Use of a Submerged Biofiter to Enhance Water Quality in Polluted Streams

Atef A. El-Saiad, Hany F. Abd-Elhamid, Zeinab I. Salama, Martina Zeleňáková, Erik Weiss and Emad H. El-Gohary
Additional contact information
Atef A. El-Saiad: Department of Water and Water Structures Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Hany F. Abd-Elhamid: Department of Water and Water Structures Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Zeinab I. Salama: Higher Institute of Engineering and Technology, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Martina Zeleňáková: Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Košice, 04200 Košice, Slovakia
Erik Weiss: Department of Commercial Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business Economy with Seat in Kosice, University of Economics in Bratislava, 04001 Košice, Slovakia
Emad H. El-Gohary: Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-15

Abstract: Water scarcity is one of the most serious problems facing many countries. In addition, water pollution could lose more water. A submerged biofilter (SB) is used to enhance the self-purification process in polluted streams. However, most previous studies have focused on the efficiency of SB to remove pollutants and there is a lack of studies investigating the hydraulic changes in streams. The current paper aimed to study the hydraulic effects of SB on the flow behavior in streams and how to improve it. An empirical equation for determining the flow rate through SB was developed. Different cases were studied to improve the hydraulic effects resulting from the use of SB. The effect of increasing SB length was tested using different SB lengths. The results showed that increasing the length increased the upstream water depth (h 1 ) and relative heading up (h 1 /h 2 ). In the second case, comparison between continuous and fragmented SB was tested. The results showed that a fragmented biofilter increased the upstream water depth and the relative heading up. Case three tested the effect of SB height. Different SB heights were tested with a fixed length and constant flow rate. The results revealed that the upstream water depth and relative heading up decreased when the biofilter height decreased. Case four tested the effect of SB with a fixed volume and constant flow rate. In this case, the length and height of SB were changed where the volume was fixed. The results showed that the relative heading up decreased when the SB height decreased and the length increased, which revealed that the SB height can improve the hydraulic impacts. Finally, the use of SB to improve the water quality in polluted streams led to an increase of the relative heading up, which can be reduced by decreasing the height of SB.

Keywords: water quality; polluted streams; submerged biofilter (SB); relative heading up; hydraulic properties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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