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Abstract Due to the shortage of water resources in Egypt, there is a need to develop low-cost technology for agriculture wastewater treatment. The objective of this research work is to apply a new in-stream technique of treatment using polyethylene (PE) strips to improve the efficiency of treating agricultural wastewater to meet irrigation reuse needs. The proposed new technique was applied to a pilot plant inside a constructed Faqous Wastewater Treatment Plant nearby Bahr El Baqar agricultural drain in El Sharqiyah Governorate, Egypt. The research includes experimental work divided into two runs that were carried out over a period of four months. Each experimental run was designed by applying a different number of strip curtains assembled in different spacing combinations. In the first experimental run, water quality measurements were carried out by taking samples before and after the application of the PE strips-curtain technique daily to measure the treatment efficiency. In the second run, different curtain combinations were tested to determine the most efficient PE-curtain assembly and the corresponding removal efficiency. The measured water quality parameters were biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), total suspended solids (TSS), and heavy metals (HM). Results showed that the new low-cost technique proved good efficiency in treating agricultural wastewater, as the pollutant removal efficiency reached 74%. The low construction cost, easy operation, and good efficiency showed that the proposed new technique is technically and financially feasible for agriculture wastewater treatment. Additionally, the experimental results were statistically analyzed, and imperial equations were developed relating the removal technique’s efficiency to different water quality parameters. The developed equations can be used in designing in-stream systems for agriculture wastewater treatment. More future research work is recommended to test the new technique under different environmental conditions and to validate the developed equations for different case studies. |