Abstract

Erakhrumen, Andrew Agbontalor

The problem of environmental pollution has assumed an unprecedented proportion in many parts of the world especially in Nigeria and its Niger-Delta region in particular. This region is bedeviled with this problem perhaps owing to interplay of demographic and socio-economic forces coupled with the various activities that revolve round the exploration for and exploitation of large deposit of crude oil discovered there. Many methods and processes of preventing, removing and or correcting the negative effects of pollutants released into the environments exist but their application in this country for this purpose has either been poorly implemented or not at all, a situation that is worsening owing probably to claims of lack of virile regulatory bodies and overwhelming dependence of government on crude oil for income. Studies have shown that the livelihood of local inhabitants largely depend on renewable natural resources which is environment dependent, thus, it is imperative that the environment should be sustainably managed in order to continue serving this function through comparatively cheaper means, one of which phytoremediation is. The objective of this review is to discuss phytoremediation studies using in-situ techniques and their potentials as a remediation technique that utilizes the age-long inherent abilities of living plants to remove pollutants from the environment but which is yet to become a commercially available technology in many parts of the world including Nigeria