Critical Review of Utilizing Constructed Wetlands to Sustainably Treat Petroleum Industry Wastewater
| dc.contributor.advisor | Cooney, Michael | |
| dc.contributor.author | Kelly, William | |
| dc.contributor.department | Oceanography | |
| dc.contributor.department | Global Environmental Science | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-03-02T21:42:33Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-03-02T21:42:33Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018 | |
| dc.description.course | OCN 499 - Undergraduate Thesis | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10125/113156 | |
| dc.publisher.place | Honolulu | |
| dc.title | Critical Review of Utilizing Constructed Wetlands to Sustainably Treat Petroleum Industry Wastewater | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dcterms.abstract | Current practices regarding the treatment of petroleum industry wastewater rely on high energy consumption and the effluent maintains high nutrient levels. Post treatment, the high nutrient wastewater is discharged into local waterways and can lead to eutrophication in surrounding waters, thereby making the treatment process an environmentally, socially and economically damaging process. Both the high energy demand and elevated nutrient levels in the effluent are reasons to explore new methods to sustainably treat the petroleum industries wastewater. While the majority of industry uses the high energy process, some utilize constructed wetlands. A constructed wetland is a low energy treatment process that produces effluent with very low nutrient levels. In this study, a sustainability analysis of the two treatment processes showed the constructed wetland to be more sustainable. The analysis weighed metrics to fully understand the complete environmental, social and economic impacts of each process. The constructed wetland proved most sustainable in the economic and social categories, due to low associated costs and contributing to Hawai’i’s sustainability initiative. Relatively closer scores in the environmental category showed both were efficient in hazardous component removal but lacking in nutrient reduction. The low energy demand and low waste produced by the constructed wetland were responsible for showing improved sustainability in the environmental category. | |
| dcterms.extent | 55 pages | |
| dcterms.language | English | |
| dcterms.publisher | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa | |
| dcterms.rights | All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner. | |
| dcterms.type | Text |
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