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As the environmental pollution is a major concern for human beings worldwide, different strategies have been developed over the years to try to mitigate the dangers associated with environmental pollutants and/or to efficiently remove them from contaminated areas, thus recovering the balance of the ecosystem. Phytoremediation is an efficient, well-accepted, low-cost, eco-friendly strategy to contribute to the restoration of environments. The purpose of this chapter is to review the historical development of plant-based remediation, highlighting the most relevant facts so that the scenario of today was achieved.

Organic and inorganic persistent pollutants are a serious risk to human health and to other living forms, negatively affecting the ecosystem as a whole. Contaminated surface water and groundwater are a serious concern once there are limited water resources in the world and that not only quality standards of microbial risk that regulatory agencies were accustomed to watch over are enough to define water as secure to be used. Persistent chemicals (mainly pesticides and heavy metals), even in small amount, can represent an enormous risk to the forms of life in contact with the polluted water. Some human activities like industrial ones, when performed without environmental concern, can end up polluting especially water sources: directly or through leaching from soil. This chapter will focus on approaches and methods to evaluate persistent pollutant load in aquatic environs.

Anthropogenic actions can result in environmental damage when they disrespect sustainability principles. The use of synthetic chemical substances as pesticides, the large presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in wastewaters, industrial activities using dyes or other organic compounds that can persist for a long time in nature are some examples of concerning sources of a group of pollutants called xenobiotics. This is a global problem that threatens the survival of various forms of life on the planet, including humans, and consequently from the ecosystem as a whole. This chapter will address specifically the concerns and threats related to the pollution of aquatic ecosystems by xenobiotics, highlighting the pesticides and pharmaceuticals.

As the process of man’s intervention on the environment is accelerated and enhances the range of industrial activities and the use of chemical agents to improve the yield of agricultural crops, pollution becomes an increasingly evident global problem that challenges the humanity and is difficult to solve. Not only human health is negatively affected but also all the ecosystem, involving other forms of life, soil, water, air, etc. In order to propose solutions to deal with heavy metals, explosives, industrial solvents, herbicides, and related pollutants, the recombinant DNA technology is a very important tool. It allows the development of transgenic organism able to eliminate the toxic residues from the environment. Transgenic plants deserve to be highlighted once their capacity to contribute can surpass the one offered by microorganisms in the uptake, transforming and limiting the toxicity of these contaminants being also a cost-effective strategy. This chapter aims to briefly review phytoremediation to remove, transform, or stabilize contaminants and its relevance to deal with persistent pollution capable of severely damaging life on earth.

Due to anthropogenic interference in the environment disrespecting the principles of sustainability, pollution is currently a serious matter of concern. This increasingly global problem threatens the survival not only of humans but also of other life forms on the planet as contaminants pose serious risks to health and to the ecosystem as a whole. This chapter will address the main causes and consequences of pollution due to two highly harmful pollutants that require attention: pesticides and heavy metals.

Pollution from heavy metals and pesticides is a major problem as these pollutants can cause irreparable damage to health or end the life of living beings exposed to them. Therefore, it is extremely important not only to create strategies to avoid these and other types of pollution and to remediate contaminated areas. It is necessary to develop innovative techniques for assessing and monitoring these pollutants in different types of samples and it is desirable that these new methodologies offer advantages over the methods conventionally used for these purposes. In this chapter, these types of pollution will be addressed and innovative ways of detecting these pollutants in different kinds of samples will be emphasized.

Environmental pollution threatens life existence on Earth. It is necessary and urgent that human beings develop efficient and safe strategies to remediate the harmful impacts caused by anthropogenic action over ecosystems. The use of plants is an interesting tool to promote environs’ restoration through phytoremediation. This kind of remediation can be performed by different mechanisms depending on the type of pollutant to be remediated, if the target environment is aqueous or soil, and on the plant species chosen. This chapter will focus on phytoremediation mechanisms and their importance as a strategic method of dealing with the restoration of polluted environs: an essential step toward achieving sustained development respecting the environment and developing environmental awareness.

Pollution represents a serious risk to living forms once it can cause from acute intoxication to death. In order to avoid the damage or restrict it, if it is not possible to eliminate it, it is necessary to develop remediation strategies. These different strategies offer a large array of options available to be used in an optimized way to remediate different kinds of environs and of pollutant or pollutants (organic and/or inorganic) present. Remediation protocols can use living organisms (biological remediation) or not (physicochemical remediation). The former group is the focus of this chapter that explores biotechnologies to restore contaminated environs and contribute to the achievement of sustained development. The use of plants, microorganisms, biochars, nanomaterials, and also the genetic manipulation of living beings are discussed as tools to develop efficient and safe protocols to try to repair the damages anthropic action caused and still causes over ecosystems.