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Lindsey Duncan
Dr. Epps
ENGL 1213
7 March 2016
Annotated Bibliography: Floating Bed Cultivation
I chose to direct my research toward agriculture for my research paper, narrowing it down
to floating bed cultivation. I have been researching the benefits of using the floating bed
technology instead of land and the best techniques to use for cultivation in larger, moving bodies
of water like a river. I have found many manuscripts that discuss the ecological benefit of the
removal of nitrogen and phosphorous from the water into the plants in the beds. The removal of
the elemental matter decreases the chances of eutrophication and it provides the plants with a
free source of fertilizer. "An integrated ecological floating-bed employing plant, freshwater clam
and biofilm carrier for purification of eutrophic water describes a design structure that would
make the water cleaning process more efficient while still benefitting the crops grown on the
floating beds and the environment in which they are cultivated.
While I have found many beneficial sources to my research, I am still lacking sources
that describe different instances of floating bed cultivation being used instead of field farming. I
need more sources that show that this process is used in agricultural, other than experiments, to
prove that floating bed cultivation can be an efficient and beneficial way to grow crops. This type
of cultivation would be very beneficial to implement because pollution is becoming an
increasing issue as technology is becoming more advanced. The floating beds have been proven
to be ecological friendly and they remove pollutions from the water source without damaging the
crop. These beds are cheap and easy to make and maintain, making them a smart way to regulate
water pollution. This type of cultivation is a cheap and easily maintainable type of crop
cultivation that is ecologically friendly and removes water pollutants which then are used as

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nutrients by the crops in the beds. Floating bed cultivation should be used as a minor source of
crop cultivation across the country because they improve environmental conditions while
efficiently raising crops in ponds, lakes, and slow-current rivers.
Chang, Ni-Bin, Kamrul Islam, Zachary Marimon, and Martin P. Wanielista. "Assessing
biological and chemical signatures related to nutrient removal by floating islands in
stormwater mesocosms." Chemosphere 88.6 (2012): 736-743. Google Scholar. Web. 22
February 2016.
Ni-Bin Chang and team created a study on the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus from
mostly stagnant water sources by using floating beds and microorganisms that live in the roots of
aquatic plants. The study showed that the floating beds kept the water source clean and also
affected the water quality by making it more clear. This article is helpful because it proves that
floating beds can improve water quality and they can keep a water source from becoming toxic
through eutrophication.
Dudley, Harris. Hydroponics: the complete guide to gardening without soil. London: New
Holland Publishers, 1992. Print.
Dudleys Hydroponics: the complete guide to gardening without soil is a complete guide
to hydroponics (floating bed cultivation) including advantages, disadvantages, the best crops to
grow, how to build one, etc. This book is useful to my research because it covers almost anything
I may need to know about growing crops using hydroponics.
Ghosal, T. K., Pritam Ghosh, and Rezaul. Cultivating Wetlands in Bangladesh. LEISA
Magazine. Agricultures Network, December 2004. Web. 3 March 2016.
Ghosals article goes more in-depth of the processes for floating bed cultivation used in
the Bangladesh wetlands along with the plants the natives have successfully grown. This is
useful to me because the article provides information on agricultural techniques that have been
used for decades to provide food for villages in the wetland area of Bangladesh.
Hu, Guang-Ji, Min Zhou, Hao-Bo Hou, Xi Zhu, and Wei-Hao Zhang. "An ecological floatingbed made from dredged lake sludge for purification of eutrophic water." Ecological
Engineering 36.10 (2010): 1448-1458. Google Scholar. Web. 22 February 2016.
Guang-Ji Hu and team experimented with dredged lake sludge and floating beds as a
eutrophication prevention in bodies of water. The dredged sludge added to the floating beds
proved to be an ecological-friendly way to be repurposed and the plants grown were still usable
after harvest. This information is beneficial because it proves that the sludge can be successfully
repurposed in a more ecologically friendly way while also removing potentially toxic material
from the water sources the beds are placed in.

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Irfanullah, Haseeb Md, Md Abul Kalam Azad, Md Kamruzzaman, and Md Ahsanul Wahed.
"Floating gardening in Bangladesh: a means to rebuild lives after devastating flood."
Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 10.1 (2011): 31-38. Google Scholar. Web. 28
February 2016.
Irfanullah and co-writers discuss the benefits of the floating bed cultivation and go into
depth on how it is used in Bangladesh. This article is helpful to me because it describes many
details regarding the crop cultivation by using hydroponics.
Islam, Tawhidul, and Peter Atkins. Indigenous Floating Cultivation: A Sustainable Agricultural
Practice in the Wetlands of Bangladesh. Development in Practice 17.1 (2007): 130136.
JSTOR. Web. 20 February 2016.
Tawhidul Islam and Peter Atkins discuss a type of cultivating in wet environments using
floating beds designed in Bangladesh for raising crops in the wetland environment. The article
discusses how the floating beds are made, how much they cost, and how they are kept and
harvested once the crops are fully grown. This is a helpful article because it includes all of the
basic knowledge for floating bed cultivation and demonstrates the efficiency of the idea.
Li, Xian-Ning, Hai-Liang Song, Wei Li, Xi-Wu Lu, and Osamu Nishimura. "An integrated
ecological floating-bed employing plant, freshwater clam and biofilm carrier for
purification of eutrophic water." Ecological Engineering 36.4 (2010): 382-390. Google
Scholar. Web. 24 February 2016.
This study done by Xian-Ning Li and team was designed to prove that the addition of
freshwater bivalves (clams) to the design of the floating bed would improve the removal of
nitrogen and phosphorous from the water and the growth of the plants in the beds. The
experiments done to test the hypothesis proved that clams make the floating beds more efficient
than the combined removal and growth of multiple floating beds. This research is important to
my project because the results show that the floating beds did a much more efficient jobs than the
beds without clams.
Liu, Chii-Dong, Yung-Yang Wen, and Ju-Min Chiou. "Comparative Characterization of Peanuts
Grown by Aquatic Floating Cultivation and Field Cultivation for Seed and Resveratrol
Production." Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry 51.6 (2003): 1582-1585.
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus (H.W. Wilson). Web. 3 Mar. 2016.
Chii-Dong Liu and team experimented on aquatic and field grown peanut products to
determine which growing condition produced better results. The results showed the aquatic type
produced a smaller product, but the roots were better for more harvests than the field grown
peanuts. This is helpful to me because the article shows the benefits and losses for growing food
crops with floating bed technology.
Saha, Shantanu Kumar. "Soilless Cultivation for Landless People: An Alternative Livelihood
Practice through Indigenous Hydroponic Agriculture in Flood-prone Bangladesh."

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Ritsumeikan J. Asia Pac. Stud. 27 (2010): 139-152. Google Scholar. Web. 25 February
2016.
In this article, Saha goes into detail about cultivation using floating beds in Bangladesh. It
describes the flooding that is frequent in that area and how the hydroponic cultivation has
allowed the villages to survive with the environmental conditions. This is helpful to me because
the beds in Bangladesh are in more open bodies of water than ponds, providing me with
solutions to making floating beds survive in rivers and lakes.
Sun, Lianpeng, Yang Liu, and Hui Jin. "Nitrogen removal from polluted river by enhanced
floating bed grown canna." Ecological engineering 35.1 (2009): 135-140. Google
Scholar. Web. 22 February 2016.
A study on nitrogen removal by floating beds was done and recorded in this manuscript
by Lianpeng Sun and co-authors. This manuscript discusses the study done and shows that
floating beds growing canna significantly benefited the environment by removing excess
nitrogen as a treatment for eutrophic water. This article is beneficial because it provides evidence
showing that floating beds will benefit the environment that they are grown in by preventing
eutrophication.
Zhou, Xiaohong, and Guoxiang Wang. "Nutrient concentration variations during Oenanthe
javanica growth and decay in the ecological floating bed system." Journal of
Environmental Sciences 22.11 (2010): 1710-1717. Google Scholar. Web. 23 February
2016.
Xiaohong Zhou and Guoxiang Wang designed a study to show the whole lifecycle of the
plants in the floating beds to determine how efficient the process is during plant growth and
decay. The results of demonstrated that the floating beds remove a significant amount of
potentially toxic elements from the water when healthy, but when they start to die and decay the
plants will release a large amount back into the water. This study is helpful for my research
because it demonstrates that the floating beds can become dangerous to the environment if the
plants cultivated on them are not removed before they start to die.
Zhu, Liandong, Zhaohua Li, and Tarja Ketola. "Biomass accumulations and nutrient uptake of
plants cultivated on artificial floating beds in China's rural area." Ecological Engineering
37.10 (2011): 1460-1466. Google Scholar. Web. 23 February 2016.
Zhu, Li, and Ketola designed an experiment to test the efficiency of terrestrial plants used
in floating beds to prevent the buildup of the eutrophic elements of phosphorous and nitrogen.
The study evaluated nitrogen and phosphorous removal and the health of the plants using aquatic
and larger terrestrial plants to test the adaptability to an aquatic life. This study is useful to me
because it proves that larger terrestrial plants like shrubs and small trees can successfully adapt to
an aquatic environment required in floating bed cultivation. The manuscript also proves helpful
because shrubs and small trees have the ability to remove more of the toxic substances that cause
eutrophication than small crops that most studies have used.

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