Water hyacinth - A boon for mankind

Water hyacinth (Echhornia Crassipes (Mart) Solms) is now considered a serious aquatic weed. It abundantly grows in lakes, tanks, ponds, shallow water masses, swamp and irrigation systems. When these water bodies are full of this aquatic plant, it causes problem for multiple uses of water, both for agricultural and human consumption. Though there are various methods of controlling this aquatic weed, its extermination by physical or chemical method is a costly and painstaking process. Despite of the several efforts with different control measures and heavy expenditure, man has had hardly any success in controlling this weed. We present in this paper a review of the scientific work done by several researchers on multiple uses of water hyacinth e.g. its use as a mulch, soil amendment agent, compost, organic manure, animal feed, leaf protein, for generating biogas, as a pollution abatement agent, for manufacturing paper and fiber, for extracting chemical compound, and in drug intermediaries. Therefore, water hyacinth can be use for our economic betterment and can solve some of our most pressing problems.