Constructed Wetlands in Ottawa

Monahan Drain Constructed Wetlands

I found out about the Monahan Drain when I was reading about the Ottawa 2017 maple groves that were being planted all over the city.

From the website:

"This artificial wetland complex, with approximately 230,000 m3 of overall storage, consisted of three storage cells sized to provide both flooding and erosion control, a wetland cell, and five sedimentation forebays designed to meet the water quality objectives of the Rideau River.  The wetland complex was designed to offer diversified wetland plantings that are native to the Ottawa area.  Plantings consisted of numerous species for each of the five zones: deep aquatic, deep emergent, shallow emergent, riparian, and upland zone.  The intent was to direct storm flows through all zones to maximize the wetland’s ability to remove nutrients, TSS, and E.Coli.  Various complex engineering analyses were carried out to size the different elements of the facility: hydrological to simulate synthetic design storm events, long-term simulations to evaluate removal of bacteria and TSS, long-term simulations to assess erosion and investigate rain-on-snowmelt events, and steady-state and hydrodynamic hydraulic analyses. The wetland is now an important community feature of Bridlewood, used for many passive recreational pursuits."

Designed by J.L. Richards

P.S. Check out my latest "urban wild" nature blog: Wild. Here.
(2016 update)