Application of combined emergent plants in floating bed for phytoremediation of landscape pond in South China

Plants support fauna richness and can be aesthetically pleasing. They also play an invaluable role in the assimilation and removal of nutrients. Canna indica L, Iris tectorums, Lythrum salicaria L., Cyperus alternifolius were found to be highly effective in remediating high nutrient levels in an aquatic environment. In this paper, the four plants were planted in floating beds in a park pond-Fuzhuang, Hefei city. The nearby pond-Lianfang as control was unplanted. The results suggested that combination of four species emergent plants performed well in nutrients removal; the removal efficiencies for suspended solids (SS), turbidity, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) were 82.5%, 87.5%, 75%, 82.9% respectively, compared with the control. At the end of the test, it successfully transformed from V grade water-body to III grade water-body. Different periods of flowering could maintain longer landscape effect. This paper demonstrated that combination of emergent plants could form pleasant scenery as well as restore eutrophic landscape pond.