Phytoremediation: A Unified Remedial System to Tackle Pesticide Pollution

The gradual increase in food demand due to immense growth of the global population has changed the farming system from subsistence to intensive farming that could enable us to feed more people. For this purpose, many approaches have been applied, among which the use of modern biotechnology, cultural practices, and pesticide application have addressed the problem up to some extent. Though it is understood that chemical control has negative impacts on environment and ecosystem; yet, synthetic pesticides have made a considerable increase in agricultural yields suppressing disease vectors. Besides beneficial impacts over mankind by increasing food production with improved sanitary quality, the demanding utilization of farm chemicals has brought forth severe health challenges raising concerns over sustainability of environment and global stability. Therefore, different techniques were applied to overcome the harmful impacts of pesticides residues on living organisms, but they are laborious, complex, and costly. Phytoremediation is a technique which utilizes plants and associated soil microbes to degrade xenobiotics in the environment. In general, phytoremediation is a set of several phyto-technologies among which phytodegradation, rhizodegradation, phytoextraction, and phytostabilization are mostly reliable for the mineralization of pesticides together with healthy plant growth. Phytoremediation is a practical and potentially the least harmful method to preserve environment in a more natural way. It is in this perspective that the current chapter illustrates the potential role and limitations of this environment-friendly technology to eliminate contaminations caused by pesticides and fertilizers. The discovery and exploitation of novel enzymatic processes related to pesticide degradation are also discussed in this chapter. Important plant species used for phytoremediation on pilot scale are also discussed in detail along with future challenges and perspectives. Certain parameters must be carefully reviewed while designing an appropriate system of phytoremediation, including the type of contaminant to be treated, features of the contaminant, selection of plant species engaged in phytoremediation, and land type along with biotic and abiotic factors that affect phytoremediation. Phytoremediation includes certain processes such as phytoextraction, rhizoremediation, phytodegradation, phytotransformation, phytovolatilization, phytostabilization, and phytodesalination