Amelioration in Water Quality of Aquatic Ecosystems Contaminated with Inorganic Pollutants: Applications of Promising Phytoremediation Technique

Abstract

Water the elixir of life has a unique role in sustaining the life of on earth. Increase in water contamination with inorganic pollutants has become a serious concern nowadays due to the increasing unsustainable developmental activities. Production processes carried at high energy inputs, discharge of untreated municipal and industrial wastewater coupled with runoff from agricultural fields leads to the build-up of toxic inorganic pollutants like heavy metals and reactive nitrogenous species (RNS) into the water bodies. Intake of water contaminated with heavy metals and nitrogenous ions (nitrate, nitrite and ammonium) by humans and other life forms causes disruption of numerous metabolic activities which can lead to neurological, cardiovascular, renal and other ailments. Of the technologies available for remediating contaminated water, phytoremediation using aquatic plants is promising because of its low cost compared to conventional physical or chemical methods, fewer negative effects and suitability for removal of pollutants on a large scale. Water remediation by macrophytes can be greatly enhanced by selection of appropriate plant species which is based on the types of elements to be remediated, the geographic location, microclimate, hydrologic conditions, known accumulation capacities of the species etc. Phytoremediation is an economical, eco-friendly and aesthetically pleasing technology that makes the use of plant systems to remove and/or detoxify pollutants from the water environment.