Microbial degradation of herbicides in contaminated soils by following computational approaches

Herbicide application in agricultural soil is a very common practice but its excessive and consistent use has become a severe environmental issue. The accumulation of herbicides and their toxic degradation products in environment exert negative effect on the ecosystem. Among physicochemical and biological approaches, microbial degradation has been recognized as an efficient approach against such nonnatural substances in soil. So far, several traditional and advanced methods have been investigated for the reduction and prevention of herbicide pollution targeting soil microbiota. In general, soil amendments and genetically modified microorganisms are being used to accelerate the degradation of herbicide in agricultural systems. The integration of the advanced computational methods such as metabolic modeling has improved the efficiency of the bioremediation approach and also reduced the time, cost, and efforts. This approach is considered a promising method for the design of effective solutions for cleaning the environment. In this chapter the integration of algorithm-based approaches with bioremediation strategies against herbicide pollution is discussed.