Halophytes as a Potential Resource for Phytodesalination Ankush Ashok Saddhe, Rakesh Manuka, Ganesh C. Nikalje, and Suprasanna Penna Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................... 2 2 Growth and Adaptive Mechanisms .......................................................... 3 3 Phytodesalination: A Green Remediation Strategy to Reclaim Saline Soil ................. 5 3.1 Halophytic Plants: Remedy for Soil Desalination ..................................... 7 3.2 Salt-Tolerant Agricultural Crops: Application in Bio-saline and Desalination ....... 10 4 Success Stories: Phytodesalination and Bio-saline Agriculture ............................. 15 5 Conclusions ................................................................................... 16 References ........................................................................................ 17 Abstract Globally the arable land resources are getting degraded due to climate change- driven factors including soil salinization and depleted water resources. It has become important to develop strategies to bring the coastal zones and degraded land resource into productive areas of cultivation. Salinity is one of the abiotic stresses which affects plant productivity, and hence attempts are being made to improve tolerant crops. Among different options for repurposing, deployment of highly productive halophytes for desalination is a viable and economic method. Halophytes have an innate ability to adopt to saline ecosystem through different mechanisms of salt exclusion or accumulation. Halophytic cash crops can be domesticated through conventional breeding programs and thus improve their productivity and salt tolerance. Several halophytes and salt tolerant crops have been successfully exploited for desalination process, and few of the commercial A. A. Saddhe Department of Biological Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Goa, India R. Manuka · S. Penna (*) Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India G. C. Nikalje Department of Botany, R. K. Talreja College of Arts, Science and Commerce, University of Mumbai, Thane, India © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M.-N. Grigore (ed.), Handbook of Halophytes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17854-3_92-1 1