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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Water and Wastewater Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1515879
This article is part of the Research Topic Impact of Climate Changes on Groundwater Resources View all 5 articles

Influence of Bio-Filter Configurations on Hydraulic Aspects while Enhancing the Sustainable Self-Purification of Agricultural Drainage Water

Provisionally accepted
Raid Alrowais Raid Alrowais 1*Ashraf Jatwary Ashraf Jatwary 2Marcela Bindzárová Gergeľová Marcela Bindzárová Gergeľová 3Mohammad Akrami Mohammad Akrami 4Bandar Alwushayh Bandar Alwushayh 1Elsayed Elkamhawy Elsayed Elkamhawy 2
  • 1 Jouf University, Sakakah, Al Jawf, Saudi Arabia
  • 2 Zagazig University, Zagazig, Al Sharqia, Egypt
  • 3 Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia
  • 4 University of Exeter, Exeter, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    As global climate change exacerbates water scarcity, recycling agricultural drainage water is emerging as a promising solution in water resources-limited regions. This research investigated the hydraulic impact of using gravel bio-filters in contaminated water-courses, focusing on submerged bioreactors as a sustainable engineering solution. This study assessed the hydraulic impacts of installing these bioreactors in polluted waterways using three-dimensional numerical models based on computational fluid dynamics. Results indicated that relative heading-up will increase with the Froude number, demonstrating a direct relationship between flow velocity and heading-up. Altering the shape of biofilter inlet is predicted to significantly influence heading-up values, with triangular shapes showing the lowest heading-up values compared to basic, rounded, or sloped upstream U.S face shapes. Relative heading-up values will increase by 10.32%, 10.44%, 24.67%, and 31.86% when changing the bio-filter inlet shape from triangular to sloped U.S. face with respect to horizontal and vertical direction, rounded, and basic bio-filter, respectively. Additionally, the number and orientation of shapes in the bio-filter inlet impact relative heading-up, with varying effects predicted based on the inclination angle. These findings provide valuable guidance for mitigating hydraulic impacts and optimizing the design and operation of bioreactors in water resource management, promoting sustainable water purification approaches in contaminated watercourses and conserving surrounding environments.

    Keywords: sustainability, bioreactor, Self-purification, Hydraulic characteristics, Bio-filter

    Received: 23 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Alrowais, Jatwary, Bindzárová Gergeľová, Akrami, Alwushayh and Elkamhawy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Raid Alrowais, Jouf University, Sakakah, Al Jawf, Saudi Arabia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.