Permaculture Guide to Reed Beds: Designing, Building and Planting Your Treatment Wetland System

Permaculture Guide to Reed Beds is a comprehensive overview of reed bed systems and treatment wetlands for household effluent treatment. Going from system selection and design to construction, planting and maintenance; this guide offers the reader a complete how-to manual for getting your own reed bed system up and running. Reed beds are an efficient, effective, low-energy filter system for protecting local groundwater and streams from septic tank effluent and grey water. This thorough book explains the background to wastewater treatment and water quality and describes how reed beds work to get wastewater clean again. Reed beds and treatment wetlands are well established elements within permaculture design, and many of the permaculture principles are readily applied to them. This guide goes a step further than simply explaining how to design and build reed beds by providing greater insight into permaculture as a design tool and exploring how to maximise the yields, beneficial relationships and sustainability of the reed bed and indeed the whole sewage treatment process within your site. Complete with an overview of planning guidelines for the UK and Ireland, Permaculture Guide to Reed Beds is an invaluable resource for home owners who want to build their own system. It is also an essential reference manual for permaculture designers, architects, engineers, landscape designers, planners and others with an interest in this area. Easy to follow and clearly set out, with beautiful line drawings to illustrate the text, this is a book you'll find both useful and inspiring. AUTHOR: Féidhlim Harty is director of FH Wetland Systems Ltd. environmental consultancy, based in Ennis, Co. Clare. FH Wetland Systems specialises in designing and planting constructed wetlands, reed beds, zero discharge willow facilities and other natural sewage treatment systems. He also designs and advises on storm water wetland design, wetland habitat creation and consultancy and other areas of environmental protection and enhancement. b/w illustrations