Affiliation:
1. Department of Environmental Sciences, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, India
Abstract
Soil pollution by heavy metals and metalloids has led to significant environmental and human health hazards. Conventional remediation technologies for trace elements are cost-intensive and degrade soil quality. Phytoremediation offers an in-situ, ecological, and economic technology for remediation of metals from soil employing hyperaccumulators. However, selection of phytoremediation technology for a given site depends on soil conditions, contaminant nature and concentration, coverage and depth of polluted area, nature of plant used, etc. As phytoremediation is a slower process, it alone becomes inefficient and thus requires integration of various agronomic practices such as plant genotypes, soil properties, irrigation, fertilizers and chelators addition, crop rotation, planting methods, weed and pest control, and inoculation of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and mycorrhizae to up-scaling phytoremediation technology for reclaiming and restoring contaminated sites effectively in a short time span.