Soil pollution and remediation

Abstract

The planet Earth is suffering from an ever-escalating rate of pollution. It was not until the twentieth century that mankind was seriously concerned about pollution. But now pollution has reached to such a significant level that is influencing all ecological compartments. There are many types of pollution. Among these most important are i.e. soil pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, and water pollution. Concerns about soil pollution have increased in the recent decades. Soil pollution has deteriorated large areas of agricultural land around the globe. It is due to soil pollution that soil biodiversity is declining. Human health is also at risk due to high concentration of pollutants found in soil. Vegetation grown on polluted soil is also contaminated to varying degrees. Simple and cost effective solution to soil pollution is bioremediation. It is an efficient technique in which hyper-accumulator plants and native plants along with bacteria and other microorganisms are grown in polluted soils. These organisms absorb and or degrade pollutants and enhance soil quality. As the bioavailability of nutrients increase, soil functioning improves. Bioremediation can be performed using a large number of techniques including biostimulation, bioaugmentation, phytoremediation, mycoremediation etc. This chapter deals with soil pollution, its possible causes and adverse environmental effects. The chapter is concluded with bioremediation as a potential alternative for soil cleanup with possible future recommendations.