Decision support tools for managing constructed wetlands to treat aquaculture wastes using cellular automata

Constructed wetlands can be used to treat wastewater discharges and are increasingly being sought as a treatment option as they are eco-friendly and require minimal maintenance and operating costs. However, large area requirement of constructed wetlands is a major constraint in their widespread use. There are various models to determine the required wetland area. Using mass balance equations as the basis for defining rules over a von Neumann neighborhood, a spatio-temporal cellular automata model was developed and executed in Visual Basic Applications to simulate pollutant transport in a wetland under distributed loading scenarios. The model is useful to identify required wetland area necessary to handle intermittent and distributed releases. A cellular automata based wetland model was developed in this study and its use in the context of wetland design and operation is illustrated as well. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...