Principles of constructed wetlands designing

Constructed wetlands (CW) - shallow surfaces or subsurface water bodies, planted with higher aquatic plants and designed to treat wastewater - have been actively used in world practice for the last decades. There are no universal principles for designing such systems, so for each combination of landscape (in which a CW is located) and the quality of wastewater, an individual type of CW is selected. The article provides an overview of the principles adopted in the world for calculating the main technological parameters of CWs (choice of the type of CW, calculation of the area of CW, the residence time of the water in the system, the choice of filtering medium, etc.) developed on the basis of numerous functioning objects. The recommendations given in the article are applicable for small and mediumsized CWs intended for the treatment of domestic, storm and agricultural wastewater.