Abstract

Animal production has been expanding during the last 10 years in Chile. In fact, trends for 2010 will be increasing 143%. The fast expansion of high population animal production resulted in larger amounts of concentrated animal waste to be utilized or disposed in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner. However, excess of nutrients may impact surface and groundwater. To avoid this, this excess must be accommodated in a different manner. Constructed wetlands have been identified as a potentially important component of animal wastewater treatment systems. However, the high organic matter contained in swine wastewaters can not be completely removed by a constructed wetland. On the other hand, combined system, anaerobic lagoon - wetland system could be successful for treating swine wastewater. The main goal of this work is to study the performance of a combined system, anaerobic lagoon-constructed wetland, for treating swine wastewater. Preliminary results show that the removal of BOD 5 were ranged 60-80% while nitrogen and phosphorus compounds were ranged 50-90% and 56-90%, respectively.