Applicability  

Landscape architects design environments with multiple objectives in mind including, recreation, wildlife conservation, and aesthetics. Phytoremediation can fit among the functions of a site to improve ecological quality and contain or remove urban contaminants.

  
While the current application of phytoremediation targets large industrial landscapes with specially engineered plants, phytoremediation has the potential to clean up many endemic types of urban contamination: metals, organic compounds, and fertilizers from roads, gardens, and light industry.
  
It is important to understand the perspective of the research into phytoremediation techniques and conduct further studies in cities and in human environments generally. After twenty years of research into bioremediation, there have been no breakthroughs in making remediation technologies affordable. Phytoremediation, on the other hand, is economical. Originally a minor subset of the field of bioremediation, phytoremediation has been found to also be capable of treating sites with toxic metal contamination. In addition, high populations of microorganisms capable of degrading toxic organic compounds live within the root zones of plants.
 		 
There are some limitations to successful treatment by phytoremediation. Contaminated sites must be:  
 

• less than twenty feet deep;
• not more than three feet below the water-table surface, and;
• contaminated at only low to medium levels.

  
  In addition, health and safety may be of concern. (See the section entitled “Further Information Needed.”)