Web app for real-time monitoring of the performance of constructed wetlands treating horticultural leachates

Leachates produced in intensive horticulture must be collected, reused and eventually treated in order to prevent environmental pollution of water bodies. Constructed wetlands (CW) try to emulate natural wetlands, where pollutants such as nitrates are removed through the denitrification process. CW are a simple and sustainable technique with a low energy demand that are being used to purify different effluents. No information is currently available on tools used to monitor the performance of such systems in terms of nutrient removal efficiency. Nor is information available on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to share news on this performance across the Internet. The purposes of the study were: a) to demonstrate the feasibility of using online instruments to measure leachate ions in order to monitor CW performance and to manage it properly and b) to share this real-time data monitoring with the end users through a web App. Under the described experimental conditions, the on-line analyzers are reliable instruments to measure nitrates, nitrite, phosphates and potassium ion. Monitoring of the constructed wetlands through the web is an effective tool that would contribute to show the feasibility of the system to the end users. These two conclusions demonstrated the innovativeness of the whole system to monitor the constructed wetlands through the Internet.