Heavy Metals in the Environment: The Global Scope: Volume 1: Environmental Impact, Ecotoxicology, Health Concerns, and Modelling

Heavy metals are ubiquitous and persistent in the ecosystem leading to biomagnification. In this fast urbanization and industrialization period, environmental pollution with heavy metals poses a severe threat to human health, including
ecosystem functioning, since anthropogenic releases of heavy metals (HM) into ecosystems and niches are increasing. These pollutants with very low threshold levels are poisonous, carcinogenic, and neurotoxic to human population. Their
persistence and nonbiodegradable nature pose a serious concern of bioaccumulation and biomagnification through food chain resulting in deleterious consequences. Various remediation methods aim in reducing those metal concentrations in ecosystems and restore the degraded ecosystem. Remediation using microorganism techniques is a reliable option in remediation. The current chapter highlights various HM entries into the ecosystem and their toxicological consequences in the global ecosystems and summarizes various strategies to mitigate the heavy
metal contaminants in various environment. Various policy and regulatory outlines in effective remediation of these toxic metals are briefed as well.