This is a satellite photo of a typical shrimp pond drainage system.

Water carrying high levels of nutrient from the shrimp pond (upper middle) is released through a drainage structure into an effluent canal. The effluent canal carries the water to sedimentation ponds where some of the nutrient settles out to the bottom of the pond, enters the food chain or is released into the atmosphere through de-nitrification. During the final step of treatment, the water flows from the sedimentation pond into a natural wetland mostly full of red mangrove. After that, it then enters a tidal creek and then flows to the sea where it eventually dilutes to become equivalent to background levels. The size of these canals varies. They are usually longer than a kilomter from 2 to 50 meters wide with a depth from 1.8 meters to less than one meter in depth.

The overall short-term goal is to reduce the amount of nutrient (primarily nitrogen and phosphorus in all forms) exiting the sedimentation pond and entering the natural wetland.

The Inventors Club project will be to design a substrate that can be placed in these effluent canals, colonized by algae, biofilms and biofouling organisms, and then stripped to feed the shrimp growing in the ponds nearby.