**3. Conclusions**

Rehabilitation of acid mine drainage contaminated sites requires an in-depth understanding of the appropriate macrophyte plants that could be used effectively in the accumulation of various elements from the sediments, and water column. Harvesting of the plants' biomass before the winter season when the plants' growth becomes inactive and dies off should be prioritized as more elements accumulated in the different plants' organs are released back into the soils and this adds more elements to the substratum. Harvesting of the plants' biomass for elements extraction for various metallurgical purposes could also be viewed as a value-adding initiative as this will be reducing the concentration amounts of these elements in the environment and also give more room for other less hardy plants to grow and thrive in those contaminated sites. The accumulation of elements in the sediment especially of most toxic elements enhances the release of other reactive ions into the environment, in addition, the reduction of such toxic elements also improved the pH conditions of the soil and water. In addition, there was no single plant amongst the three investigated species that was found to accumulate a higher amount of certain elements in all the plants' organs of leaves, rhizomes, and roots. The investigated macrophytes species have demonstrated merit results in decontaminating AMD in the soil and further portrayed the potential of being used for phytostabilisation and phytoextraction as they are fast and easily spreading on contaminated sites, and can withstand high metal toxicity.
