Phytomonitoring of heavy metal from aquatic plants collected in Purwodadi Botanic Garden

Abstract

Phytomonitoring is an effort to monitor the quality of the environment using plants. Phytomonitoring is an implementation of the concept of phytotechnology. Phytotechnology focuses on plants as a natural technology for solving environmental problems. One of the environmental problems is heavy metal pollution. Heavy metals are toxic and cause human health problems. Human activities can increase heavy metal waste that pollutes the environment. Plants could be used to determine the presence of heavy metal contaminants in the surrounding environment. A botanic garden is an ex-situ plant conservation area. The purposes of botanic gardens are conservation, research, education, tourism, and environmental services. Purwodadi Botanic Garden is assumed to be a natural and pollution-free area. But how does the plant collection in the garden provide services to the surrounding environment? Through phytomonitoring it can be determined what the aquatic plants collection has been doing for environmental remediation of the surrounding pollution. That is why this research aimed to determine the heavy metal contents in the aquatic plants collection in Purwodadi Botanic Garden. In this study, heavy metals tested were: Hg, Cu, Cr, Cd, and Pb, whereas aquatic plants used were: Pistia stratiotes, Lemna minor, Salvinia molesta, Ceratophyllum demersum, Echinodorus radicans, Sagittaria lancifolia, Thalia geniculata, and Typha angustifolia. The phytomonitoring showed that all plant species in the garden can accumulate heavy metals and Thalia geniculata species had the highest potential for phytoremediation. These results are expected to be used as basic data in further research and provide data for plants collection management in the future.