wickham park treatment pond

Brevard County, Florida​

This 4.44 acre stormwater pond receives runoff from a large and diverse drainage basin,  including agricultural, residential, commercial and recreational properties. The outfall, at the north end of the pond, empties into Horse Creek which flows directly to the Indian River Lagoon to the east.  

We initially installed 9,760 square feet of floating wetlands in 2016, as 33 -  512 square foot islands. In April, 2018, we added a Solar Bee vertical water circulator to one end of the pond and reconfigured the floating wetlands into four large rectangles. Two of the rectangular islands were placed in the southwestern arm of the pond, surrounding the Solar Bee circulator, and the other two were deployed in the northern half of the pond, as a control. Dr. Sarah White of Clemson University, designed a two year study to compare the nutrient uptake rates by the plants on the floating wetlands, with and without vertical water circulation. Her report, published in WATER, is reprinted in the Science portion of this website.  

Following the data collection in April 2019, we re-configured the floating wetlands again, to form 10 – 960 square foot islands and 1 – 64 square foot island, and changed the harvest technique from annual harvest to trimming every four months.  We continue to collect nitrogen and phosphorus uptake data and submit samples to ENCO Labs in Orlando for analysis.

The addition of water circulation in the pond resulted in increased nutrient harvests, particularly phosphorus. Comparison of the twelve month period between April, 2017 – April 2018, without circulation, to the following twelve month period with circulation, revealed a 13 % increase in nitrogen uptake and a 228 % increase in phosphorus uptake by the same area of floating wetlands.  

​Over the past four years, with and without water circulation, the plants on these floating wetlands have taken approximately 2,957.52 pounds of nitrogen and 555.21 pounds of phosphorus from the water in the Wickham Park Pond, keeping those nutrients out of Horse Creek and the Indian River Lagoon. 

2021

2017

2019

2019

beemats floating wetlands

2021