@misc{9249471,
  abstract     = {{A 28.6-hectare area in southern Sweden is contaminated due to activities at a shooting range that closed in 1998, while also partially serving as a site for groundwater extraction. The ground has been unusable for years due to its toxicity. The long-term objective for the site is to be used as grazing land for livestock. However, no remediation measures have yet been established due to the complexity of the contamination. The aim of this study is to test whether a plant species, suitable for the specific site can be cultivated on site to act as an efficient phytoextractor to remove heavy metals. Furthermore, it aims to investigate if it is a competitive strategy in comparison with alternative conventional remediation strategies regarding costs, ecology, risks, and time. The plants that were studied were Camelina sativa, Cannabis sativa, Helianthus annuus, Lolium perenne, Trifolium pratense and Urtica dioica, however, H. annuus and Camelina sativa had to be excluded in the plant uptake analysis due to time restrictions. Different treatment strategies with EDTA and fertiliser were implemented to compare with the results for only contaminated soil and a regular plant soil for reference. The heavy metal uptake was analysed using ICP-MS to generate results in mg/kg dry weight and the scope of the study was limited to the metals: arsenic, lead, and antimony. To evaluate the phytoextraction, the translocation rate in total uptake per year over the whole site was calculated for each plant species and treatment group. The results show that phytoextraction is not a permanent remediation strategy due to the inability to remove metal fragments and is thus not competitive to conventional strategies. However, it can act as an interim remediation strategy. According to this experiment, with consistent phytoextraction it will take several hundreds and thousands of years of to match the amount of metals in the soil with the total metal removal in plants. Despite this, several tens, and hundreds of kg of metals can be removed on the site per year of cultivation. This means that it could prevent leaching and consequently hinder dispersal to nearby waterbodies. If phytoremediation can keep the amount of soil that needs to be excavated in the soil profile to a minimum due to reduced leaching, then it is beneficial as a remediation strategy prior to excavation measures. More research is needed on phytoremediation and its effect on leaching in order to draw this conclusion.}},
  author       = {{Gutesten, Elin}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{ISRN}},
  title        = {{Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals in a Shooting Range and Natural Area: A Case Study in Southern Sweden}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}