Phytoremediation of Heavy Metal Contaminated Soils Using Various Flower and Ornamentals

Abstract

Soil contamination has become a serious problem in many industrialized and developing countries. Indiscriminate dumping of urban and industrial effluents along with solid waste often lead to toxic accumulation of heavy metal ions which not only impair soil productivity but also cause health hazards by entering into food chain via soil-plant-animal/human route. With rapid urbanization and industrialization, large quantities of industrial effluents get mixed with sewage and river water [1]. Irrigating crop fields with such contaminated sewage water is being increasingly adopted by marginal farmers due to scarcity of irrigation water. It also inadvertently leads to addition of large quantity of heavy metals to the agro ecosystem [2]. Plants with abilities to hyperaccumulate, accumulate, exclude and indicate heavy metals are important in environmental remediation. Most phytoremediation studies are aimed at inorganic pollutants through different approaches defined as phytoextraction (the used of metal accumulating plants to transport and concentrate metals from the soil to roots and above ground biomass), rhizofiltration (the use of plant roots to absorb, precipitate, and concentrate toxic metals from polluted effluents), and phytostabilization (the use of plants to reduce the mobility of metals)