Lepidium sativum L. as test-organism for assessment of environmental pollution

Polluting substances when released into environment become one of the main factors ofenvironmental pollution since they cause changes to the chemical composition of water,bottom sediments and soil; they also disturb the biological balance and self-cleaningprocesses of the ecosystem that may lead to unpredictable alterations within the ecosystem.Together with the chemical and physical techniques the methods of bioindication andbiotesting are employed in the current research on environmental pollution and its impact onthe ecological integrity of ecosystems,The aim of this paper was to determine the sensitivity of a test-organism L sativum to thetoxic impact of different types of samples (liquid or solid: surface water, industrialwastewater, industrial storm water, landfill leachate, lake bottom sediments and sludge fromindustrial storm water sedimentation tank) from urban environment and chemical substancesand to demonstrate the possibilities of application of this plant in both the toxicologicalinvestigation and environmental pollution assessment.The results of conducted investigation have proved that L. sativum is a sufficiently universal,cheap and sensitive biotest for determination of toxicity of different types of samples (stormwater, bottom sediments, soil, wastewater from industrial sites, landfill leachate) and includedchemical substances. Therefore, it can be successfully applied in the environmental pollutionassessment.