Agronomy towards the Green Economy: optimization of phytoremediation

Traditional techniques for remediation of polluted soils are based on a physical-chemical approach; such techniques are expensive, have adverse effects on soil quality and are often highly expensive. In the scenario of the Green Economy, low cost and impact technologies should be promoted. Phytotechnologies are remediation technologies that use plants for the containment, degradation or removal of contaminants from polluted matrices for the restoration of degraded ecosystems. The process of phytoextraction is substantially based on plant-soil interactions that involves the mass transfer of an inorganic pollutant from the bulk soil to the plant biomass. This implies that the management of the two elements of the system (plant and soil) should have effects on the efficiency of the process. As phytoremediation is essentially an agronomic approach, its success depends ultimately on standard agronomic practices. The present paper aims give an overview on the role of agronomy in the optimization of metal phytoextraction is focused.