Use of Wetland Plants in Bioaccumulation of Heavy Metals
Heavy metal pollution due to anthropogenic activities like mining, smelting, untreated waste disposal and dumping, and pesticides and fertilizers application is becoming a major global concern. Once released into the environment, heavy metals find their w
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Use of Wetland Plants in Bioaccumulation of Heavy Metals Soumya Chatterjee, Sibnarayan Datta, Priyanka Halder Mallick, Anindita Mitra, Vijay Veer, and Subhra Kumar Mukhopadhyay
7.1
Environmental Contamination
Environmental pollutants due to dispersal of industrial and urban wastes generated through anthropogenic activities have become a major global concern. Most of the pollutants once enter into the environment get accumulated in soils and aquatic environments, creating wide spread contamination that vary in composition and in concentration. Several factors are responsible for the migration of contaminants like controlled and uncontrolled disposal of organic and inorganic wastes, accidental and process spillages, inadequate residue disposal, mining, and smelting of metalliferous ores, sewage sludge application to agricultural soils, etc. (Ghosh and Singh 2005; Kavamura and Esposito 2010). Steady deterioration of the environment due to pollution and its ailing effects to mankind is among the major concerns worldwide. Heavy metals (elements with metallic properties like ductility, conductivity, stability as cations, ligand specificity, etc., with an atomic number >20 and having specific weight >5 g cm3) constitute an exceptionally diverse assembly of elements largely diverse in their chemical characteristics and biological functions. Though most of the metals are essential, all are toxic to organisms at higher concentrations due to production of free radicals that cause oxidative stress or
S. Chatterjee (*) • S. Datta • V. Veer Defence Research Laboratory, DRDO, Post Bag 2, Tezpur 784 001, Assam, India e-mail: [email protected] P.H. Mallick Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore (West) 721 102, West Bengal, India A. Mitra Department of Zoology, Bankura Christian College, Bankura 722 101, West Bengal, India S.K. Mukhopadhyay Hooghly Mohsin College, Chinsurah 712 101, West Bengal, India D.K. Gupta (ed.), Plant-Based Remediation Processes, Soil Biology 35, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-35564-6_7, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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replacement of essential metals in pigments or enzymes disrupting their function (Prasad and Freitas 2003). Thus higher proportion of heavy metal contamination destroys the biodiversity by making the area inappropriate for propagation of life forms. A number of these metals, due to their toxicity, are found in the top 20 on the 2007 CERCLA Priority List of Hazardous Substances, including arsenic (ranked first), lead (ranked second), mercury (ranked third), cadmium (ranked seventh), and chromium (ranked 17th) (CERCLA 2007).
7.2
Heavy Metals as Contaminants of Environment and Its Effects
Both natural and anthropogenic sources are responsible for release of heavy metals into the environment. Dumping of untreated industrial wastes and different metal mining operations are the major concern of heavy metal pollution (Hutton and Symon 1986; Nriagu 1989). Even long after the dumping activities have ceased, the released metals continue to pers
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