After trying out all expensive means to filter water, researchers have resorted back to nature and are using its unique abilities to provide clean water to the masses. ‘Biosculptures’, as scientists call them, are living sculptures that use the capacity of carefully chosen plants to clean and filter water.
These sculptures can be modified according to their use – at smaller scale they can be used to clean household or office graywater and at larger scale they can be used as parts of water remediation systems for wetlands, rivers, and storm water runoff.
Made of mosses, ferns and other plants that can grow on stone and concrete structures, they provide ecological and aesthetic solutions to water quality and water quantity problems.
Pictured above is ‘The Gift of water’, which is a wetland filtration system. The hands made of concrete are covered with moss and reach from the bank into the pond. As water flows through these hands, a misting fountain aerates it and moistens the mosses, which then filter the contaminants out of water.
Such systems are much better that other conventionally deployed systems because the waste from the water is converted into life sustaining material by the bacteria present in mosses and clean water is then utilized at other places. All this happens without the need of chlorine and other chemicals which can clean water but are not eco-friendly.
Via: Tree Hugger
