Household-Scale Constructed Wetland for Greywater Reuse — Noungou, Burkina Faso

Researchers from the Institut International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environnement (2iE) in Ouagadougou built and monitored a full-scale, subsurface horizontal-flow constructed wetland for a rural household in Noungou, in the Koubri area south of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The system — a shower room feeding a receiving basin, a simple pre-treatment filter and a wetland cell planted with vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) built from local materials — treats mixed household greywater from laundry, dishwashing and bathing for reuse, mainly in irrigation, in an arid Sahelian setting where water is scarce.
Over a four-week monitoring period in June–July 2022, the system removed more than 90% of organic matter and reduced orthophosphate and ammonium by 73% and 60% respectively; pathogen indicators (faecal coliforms and enterococci) were reduced by 3.4–4.2 log10 units, meeting World Health Organization guidance for water reused under restricted irrigation. The design uses only local materials and gravity flow, making it a plausible low-cost model for other rural Sahelian households facing similar water stress.
The evidence base is still narrow: this is a single-household, four-week pilot run by a research institute rather than a scaled or government-run programme, so results on long-term performance, maintenance burden and replication beyond the pilot site are not yet available.

Read the full analysis: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.966066