STEM
trees; providing the stability of this habitat. Due to tidal inundations, heavy metals from the petrochemical industry are also being dispersed over large areas, causing a major threat to the environment and contaminating ground water, a hazard for human health. To alleviate this damage, in phytoremediation, vast mangrove forests can help discard waste as heavy metal accumulators, entrapping pollutants in their surplus fine particle sediment and absorbing metal ions and organic pollutants via their roots in bioaccumulation. Rhizoremediation is a promising technology within mangroves which combines these unique mangrove specialisms and could be used to remove polyaromatic hydrocarbons from run-off water based on interactions between these plants and the microbiome in the rhizosphere. Exudates derived from the plant into the sediment rhizosphere can help to stimulate the survival and action of bacteria which results in the more efficient degradation of these dangerous pollutants.
However, a problem arises when we consider how to value and measure the amount of pollution that mangroves can reduce. One proposal is that mangroves can be monitored through biochemical oxygen demand sensors which monitor the amount of oxygen required to oxidise the organic carbon present in wastewater surrounding them. As bio and phytoremediation take place and pollutants are either broken down or absorbed, the oxygen required to oxidise this organic carbon will decrease. Overall, mangroves are a unique community with extraordinary halophytic adaptations, surviving in salty intertidal areas and up to 55 degrees Celsius air temperature. At a time where tackling climate change and maintaining biodiversity are crucial in both government agenda and regarding the general opinion, their inspiring ability to reduce pollution and potential to achieve carbon neutrality in the Middle East is certainly something to be hopeful for post COP 27.
Glossary Viviparous Germination Seeds are germinated by being attached to the parent plant Halophyte A salt-tolerant plant that grows in soil or waters of high salinity
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