ABSTRACT
Contamination of water and soil by toxic pollutants through the discharge of municipal, domestic, and industrial wastewater has become a worldwide environmental problem due to its serious consequences on human health, agricultural crop production, and aquatic ecosystems. Phytoremediation is an attractive eco-friendly technology that uses plants to reduce/degrade environmental pollutants from the contaminated site. However, phytoremediation of environmental contaminants often proves not ideal because plants and their associated microbial communities only partially degrade these compounds. In addition, the presence of toxic compounds in wastewater can also affect overall system performance by reducing plant growth and/or inhibiting the natural decay process. Phytoaugmentation is considered a promising technology for the remediation of environmental pollutants. In the present chapter, we offer a summary of the current knowledge as well as developments in rhizospheric and endophytic phytoaugmentation technology and present their potential applications for remediation of contamination from wastewater. There have been a limited number of published rhizospheric and endophytic phytoaugmentation case studies, and much remains to be done to transition lab-scale results to field applications.
