Abstract

Lake Manzala Engineered Wetland project (LMEWP) is a constructed wetland that has been designed for treating drainage water coming from Bahr El-Baqar drain. In this study, the concentration of heavy metals (Cu, Zn and Pb) in water, sediment and different organs of Phragmitesaustralis collected from LMEWP seasonally. The aim of this study was to determine the dynamics of distribution of metals in different parts of phragmitesaustralis, and to determined the bioaccumulation factor (BCF) in different organs of plant phragmitesaustralis and Translocation Factor (TA), particularly to determine the time of maximum accumulation in the above-ground tissues and to assess removal capacity of phragmitesaustralis in LMEWP. Results revealed a high significant correlation between heavy metals concentrations in phragmitesaustralis with its location in LMEWP vegetation cell; start cell> end cell. The highest concentration of metals is mostly found in phragmitesaustralis root. All metals were accumulated in root over time until the end of the growing season after eight months. On the other side, metal concentrations in stem and leaves increased even after the growing season of the plant. Overall, the results suggest to harvestphragmitesaustralis before six months IN the growing season in order to improve the accumulative efficiency of phragmitesaustralis in LMEWP project.