Name: Isabel C. Butler Viruet
Date: 01/16/2025
Time (EST/EDT): 9:00 AM
Location: CBL BFL1101
Remote Access: email mees@umd.edu

Committee Chair: Dr. Jeremy Testa
Committee Members: Dr. Lora Harris Dr. Walter Boynton Mr. Gary Shenk
Dean’s Representative: Dr. Stephanie Lansing

Title: Floating wetlands and their potential for nitrogen removal from estuarine waters

Abstract: Nutrient enrichment of estuarine waters remains a problem globally. New efforts have sought to apply ecological engineering principles to promote nutrient removal within degraded aquatic systems by constructing habitats that may support enhanced nitrogen removal. Several technologies and approaches are certified as best management practices (BMPs) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These include the restoration of oyster reefs, stream and estuarine wetlands, riparian buffers, and the implementation of wet retention ponds. Each of these habitats has been suggested to be a “hotspot” for nitrogen removal, but they are also biologically and chemically complex environments. Thus, quantifying their impact on nutrient removal is difficult due to interactions with other processes that influence nitrogen transformation and loss within tidal estuarine waters. Floating wetlands have traditionally been implemented to increase the nutrient removal efficiency in freshwater retention ponds, where nutrient removal is presumed to be accomplished by plant assimilation and sediment deposition. Similar installations of floating wetlands in tidal waters have recently been implemented to achieve the same ecosystem services as in retention ponds, but little is known about their efficacy. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate floating wetlands and their potential for nitrogen removal when deployed in estuarine systems, to identify major nitrogen removal pathways beyond plant assimilation, develop a model to quantify floating wetland nitrogen removal dynamics, and to explore the implications, gaps and future steps for floating wetland technology in estuarine waters.