Use potentials of macrophytes to limit the industrial impact on European water bodies

Abstract

For the achievement of good recommended chemical and ecological status of European water masses, macrophytes are good candidates for evaluating as well as reducing ecotoxicity of industrial effluents before release in aquatic environments. Firstly, these bio-integrators are suitable for estimating the impacts caused by synergies between pollutants and/or by chronicity of releases. A new biomonitoring tool – the Helophyte Development Index (HDI) – using five macrophytes, has been developed under controlled conditions, on the basis of plant responses to artificial industrial effluents. Unlike most of existing tools, this one uses native species from the concerned aquatic bodies, and do not require any laboratory equipment. It is user-friendly and monitoring can be conducted on-site by a non-specialist. The HDI tool has the potential to be routinely used to check impact of industrial discharges, but it is first necessary to accumulate in situ data to validate this method under various environmental and contamination conditions. Secondly, macrophytes are known as being able to accumulate metals in their biomasses and can thus contribute to phytoremediation of industrial effluents. Several hyperaccumulator exotic species have been discovered but researches have to be conducted on autochthonous macrophytes from European water bodies for pooling objectives of phytoremediation and biodiversity conservation.