The multi-site study of Asian Wetland: Integrated Evaluation of Urban and Rural Wetland Systems to Enhance Water Quality and Mitigate Health Risk

Abstract

This study at multiple sites aims at establishing the use of natural and constructed wetlands in divergent urban and landscapes in Asia, including India, China, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia in improving water quality and reducing the impact on the health needs of the population. Through increasing urbanization and release of wastewater into the environment without treatment, the wetlands are seriously degraded, and they still amount to critical ecological infrastructure. It uses physicochemical measurements, machine learning prediction, and risk estimations of the humans health to make comparisons amid wetland performances. The Amanaka wetland in Raipur, India showed good performance in reduction of pollution (e.g. 87.9 percent COD removal, 87.2 percent nitrate removal) and engineered wetlands in Chhattisgarh showed the same even with passive design. Tech-driven improvements in water quality management are evidenced by the application of predictive models (XGBoost, RF) to track pollution in real-time by the coastal cities in China. Mirpur, Bangladesh, on the other hand, has great health risks posed by trace metals in school tap water, with THQ ranging >1 between the arsenic and lead. In addition, socioeconomic considerations of the Gudera Wetland in Ethiopia also showed high-community willingness to pay (WTP) on restoration of wetlands. Taken together, the findings support the deployment of context-sensitive wetlands solutions, which brings together natural system solutions, predictive technology, and population engagement. This paper reaches a conclusion that scalable and decentralized systems of wetlands implement a sustainable way of resolving the interrelated water quality and the health issue facing Asia provided they are designed contextually, well-monitored and democratically controlled.