Plants in Polluted and Disturbed Environments: Phytoremediation, Emerging Contaminants and Soil–Plant–Microbe Interactions

Pollution and physical disturbance alter plant performance through interacting chemical, hydrological, biological and demographic filters. Yet the capacity of plants to survive in degraded environments is often treated as evidence of ecological recovery or contaminant remediation, despite important differences between tolerance, establishment, pollutant retention, risk reduction and ecosystem function. This critical narrative review integrates plant stress physiology, community ecology and restoration science to examine how these distinctions affect interpretation and management. Literature published principally from 2000 to 1 September 2026 was evaluated using accessible scholarly indexes, original field investigations, mechanistic experiments, syntheses and ecological restoration standards. The review considers metal(loid)-contaminated soils, altered salinity and nutrient regimes, atmospheric ozone, selected organic contaminants and microplastics, alongside mining, land clearance, fire and other disturbances. Physiological responses include ion homeostasis, antioxidant regulation, photosynthetic adjustment, resource allocation and stress signalling. Their ecological significance depends on exposure duration, trait variation, life-history strategy, plant–soil feedbacks and the availability of colonists. Evidence for particular biochemical pathways is often stronger than evidence that the same mechanisms deliver persistent field-scale remediation. Similarly, vegetation cover may suppress erosion without lowering contaminant mobility or restoring native community composition. Natural regeneration, phytostabilisation, assisted revegetation, constructed wetlands and climate-aware species selection each have context-dependent benefits and limitations. The strongest restoration programmes therefore establish separate benchmarks for exposure reduction, vegetation persistence, biodiversity, soil functioning and downstream risk, and test potential conflicts among them. Priority needs include multi-stressor experiments linked to field gradients, replicated long-term comparisons of restoration pathways, explicit contaminant mass balances, and monitoring designs capable of distinguishing ecological recovery from superficial greening. An integrated, risk-sensitive framework can improve decisions without presuming that one tolerant species or technology is universally suitable.