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Water treatment for human uses is a vital asset to economic development. This article focuses on a combination of physical, biological, and chemical processes. Methods of water treatment require concrete or steel base structures, rendering them heavy, costly, and time-consuming to establish. Water treatment systems should be economically viable and practicable in design for developing societies; hence, structural builds should be simplified. Novel structures, a series of polyethylene cyclonic ponds for water treatment, were built and tested. Tanks were equipped with a settled material central outlet, water side outlet, and a pump shower system that enabled sludge removal without mechanical intervention. A freely flowing vortex was produced, aerated, given a biological treatment, and finally mixed with a chemical treatment step. Test establishment of the batch system enabled improvement in water quality, with removal performance as follows: TSS (total suspended solids) = 98%, UV254 absorbance = 50%, DOC (dissolved organic carbon) = 56%, and turbidity=95%. The batch system builds of the current study required short construction time and were economically priced. Cyclonic ponds are suited to diverse usage. The value may be felt in the improvement of water quality for human consumption, utility, and ecosystem services to counter the extensive pollution caused by oil and gas extraction and other industries.

In many areas, wastewater feeds water bodies, which leads to it being non-usable for agricultural and other uses. Phytoremediation is a scientific approach which cleans contaminated waters, demanding large areas for application. Vertical agriculture is a new method to compact plant cultures. This study investigates vertical wastewater phytoremediation (VWP). Twenty vetiver grasses were planted in a hydroponic vertical agriculture system. Wastewater flowed into the system in four different flow rates, 60, 80, 100, and 160 l day−1 and water purity was assessed in order to measure the remediation ability of the VWP. Results showed a reduction in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5 and NO3− concentrations and an increase of electrical conductivity (EC) and dissolved oxygen (DO) in the outlet. Maximum and minimum (BOD5) reduction percentage (78.47% and 67.36%) and NO3− removal percentage (90.53% and 36.41%) occurred in flow rates 60 and 160 l day−1, respectively. With the increase of wastewater flow rate, phytoremediation performance decreased, but the performance of VWP with vetiver grass was efficient enough to enable wastewater remediation. Scaling up VWP with Vetiver and related competitive plant species holds promise for wastewater remediation for both human and ecosystem services.