nature-based-solutions
Nature-based solutions harness biodiversity and natural ecological processes to address environmental challenges including climate change, water security, and food production. For plant science, this approach is fundamentally important because plants form the biological foundation of resilient ecosystems, directly enabling both climate mitigation and adaptation while supporting human welfare. Research into plant diversity, physiology, and ecosystem interactions thus directly advances the practical implementation and effectiveness of these solutions.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-08
Coal mining devastates air, soil, and water quality across mining regions worldwide. This review finds that using plants to clean up contaminated land — a method called phytoremediation — offers a cost-effective, sustainable alternative to conventional cleanup methods, especially when combined with modern techniques like microbes, biochar, and genetic improvements.
Conventional cleanup methods like topsoil replacement and water spraying are limited in effectiveness, site-specific, and costly — making plant-based remediation an increasingly attractive alternative.
Different plant functional groups (grasses, shrubs, trees, aquatic plants) play distinct roles in stabilizing, extracting, or breaking down heavy metals and other mining contaminants in soil and water.
Emerging enhancements — including microbe-assisted growth, biochar integration, nano-scale materials, and genetic improvement of plants — can significantly boost phytoremediation performance at real-world field scale.