| Summary: | Waste stabilisation pond (WSP) techology has been applied in many countries as a cost effective and sustainable solution to treating wastewater. However, their simplicity of design has been overestimated, which has led to many WSPs under-performing. The main causes for this have been attributed to poor operation and maintenance, adverse environmental conditions and inconect design and loading. This research focuses on how environmental conditions affect the pond and what design changes can be applied to improve the hydraulic perfol1nance despite these factors . The three interventions tested were: a) introduction of longitudinal baffles to create a three channel pond, b) the installation of a stub baffle in front of the inlet to assess the effect of dissipating the energy from the inlet jet, and c) windbreaks to reduce wind access to the pond. These interventions were combined and classified under scenarios to find which gave the best hydraulic perfol1nance. Several tracer studies were carried out for each scenario, which showed good replicability in the hydraulic behaviour despite being canied out at different times of the year. Unlike, the physicochemical parameters for effluent's quality, which showed great variations between seasons, confirming the intricately linked set of biochemical and physical reactions that occur in the pond.Overall, the results indicate that longitudinal baffle (channel) undoubtedly provide better conditions for improved perfol1nance of WSPs and wind can also contribute to an improved performance depending upon surrounding conditions and physical interventions.
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