The wide variability of biodiversity offers an extensive spectrum of tools to remediate water and sediments using plants. Several characteristics of plants, such as the evapotranspiration potential, the bioaccumulation of pollutants, the enhancement of the biodegradative capability in the rhizosphere, can be exploited to this purpose. Besides the most common constructed wetlands, some other examples of plant-based water treatment are: the irrigation of fast growing tree plantation with wastewater, the vegetal buffer strips along watercourses in rural areas or hydroponic cultures fed by polluted water. All these phytotechnology applications are site-specifics: each remediation project should be conceived individually, depending on the environmental and the climatic conditions, on the type and the chemical characteristics of the contamination. In this context, the choice of the plant species and varieties is of crucial importance in order to optimize each remediation process; root extension, growth rate, evapotranspiration potential, life span and leaf drops are just some of the features to be taken into consideration for the design of a phytoremediation system. Moreover, the efficacy of a plant depends mainly on the degree of tolerance and on the bioaccumulation rates toward specific contaminants; it can differ greatly between different plant species, but also between different varieties or clones of the same species. It is thus of capital importance to test the fate of each contaminant in different plant species, varieties and clones in order to ensure plant survival and to optimize the phytoremediation system; decision support tools such as modelling could predict the performance of phytoremediation systems on the base of experimental data. In this report we present the activity of our Institute (IBAF, Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology) in the field of plant-based water treatment technologies and the results in water depuration achieved in our laboratories during last years.
INVESTIGATING THE WIDE RANGE OF TOOLS TO TREAT WATER USING PLANTS: phytotechnologies for water treatment
Laura Passatore;Massimo Zacchini;Fabrizio Pietrini;Valentina Iori;Angelo Massacci
2015
Abstract
The wide variability of biodiversity offers an extensive spectrum of tools to remediate water and sediments using plants. Several characteristics of plants, such as the evapotranspiration potential, the bioaccumulation of pollutants, the enhancement of the biodegradative capability in the rhizosphere, can be exploited to this purpose. Besides the most common constructed wetlands, some other examples of plant-based water treatment are: the irrigation of fast growing tree plantation with wastewater, the vegetal buffer strips along watercourses in rural areas or hydroponic cultures fed by polluted water. All these phytotechnology applications are site-specifics: each remediation project should be conceived individually, depending on the environmental and the climatic conditions, on the type and the chemical characteristics of the contamination. In this context, the choice of the plant species and varieties is of crucial importance in order to optimize each remediation process; root extension, growth rate, evapotranspiration potential, life span and leaf drops are just some of the features to be taken into consideration for the design of a phytoremediation system. Moreover, the efficacy of a plant depends mainly on the degree of tolerance and on the bioaccumulation rates toward specific contaminants; it can differ greatly between different plant species, but also between different varieties or clones of the same species. It is thus of capital importance to test the fate of each contaminant in different plant species, varieties and clones in order to ensure plant survival and to optimize the phytoremediation system; decision support tools such as modelling could predict the performance of phytoremediation systems on the base of experimental data. In this report we present the activity of our Institute (IBAF, Institute of Agro-Environmental and Forest Biology) in the field of plant-based water treatment technologies and the results in water depuration achieved in our laboratories during last years.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
