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Environmental pollution, particularly contamination of soil and water resources, has been accelerated as a result of global industrialization and so is considered as a major risk for human communities throughout the world. Due to the adverse effects of organic and inorganic pollutants on human health and environmental safety, it is necessary to be removed in order to minimize the entry of these potentially toxics into the food chain. There are several methods to remove the soil pollutants which are categorized into 3 main parts including chemical, physical and biological methods. While conventional methods of soil clean-up including solidification, vitrification, electrokinetic, excavation, soil washing and flushing, oxidation and reduction etc. have shown to be effective in small areas, they need special equipments and are labor intensive. However, due to the side effects and highly costs of physical and chemical techniques, the biological methods especially phytoremediation, seem to be promising remedial strategies and so are highlighted as alternative techniques to traditional methodologies. Although phytoremediation as a “green technology” has shown many encouraging results, there have also been numerous inconclusive and unsuccessful attempts, especially in the field conditions, mostly because of biotic and abiotic stresses. “Abiotic stress is defined as the negative impact of non-living factors on the living organisms in a specific environment” (http://en.wikipedia.org). Abiotic stressors as the plant stress factors including high concentration of organic and inorganic pollutants, salinity, drought, flooding etc. could be considered as the main general themes adversely affect phytoremediation efficiency. Therefore, decrease of abiotic stresses is considered as a promising approach to introduce phytoremediation technique more applicable even though in the present of environmental stressors which significantly affect plant growth and development (Dimkpa et al., 2009; Gerhardt et al., 2009; Weyens et al., 2009). In this chapter we have discussed phytoremediation and its various types, as well as the plant response to abiotic stresses and the mechanisms which could be efficient to enhance phytoremediation efficiency regarding to abiotic stresses, especially considering environmental pollutants. |
