Biomanagement Of Metal Contaminated Soils

Heavy-metal contamination is one of the world's major environmental problems, posing significant risks to agro-ecosystems. Conventional technologies employed for heavy-metal remediation have often been expensive and disruptive. This book provides comprehensive, state-of-the-art coverage of the natural, sustainable alternatives that use a wide range of biological materials in the removal/detoxification of heavy metals, consequently leading to the improvement of crops in these soils. Novel, environmentally friendly and inexpensive solutions are presented based on a sound understanding of metal contamination and the roles of plants and microbes in the management of these toxic soils. Written by worldwide experts, the book provides not only the necessary scientific background but also addresses the challenging questions that require special attention in order to better understand metal toxicity in soils and its management through bioremediation.

Although adverse health effects of heavy metals have been known for a long time, exposure to heavy metals continues and is even increasing in some areas. Remediating heavy metal contaminated soils and water is necessary to reduce the associated health and ecological risks, make the land resource available for agricultural production, enhance food security, and scale down land tenure problems. This book discusses the causes and the environmental impact of heavy metal contamination. It then explores many exciting new methods of analysis and decontamination currently studied and applied in the field today.

An unfortunate by-product of industrialization is the contamination of soil and water resources with toxic metals, which becomes an environmental concern when the concentration in soils begins to affect human health. Current remediation methods applicable to contaminated soils are expensive and environmentally invasive since they are based primarily on civil-engineering techniques. This book represents an overview of efforts in exploiting biological and chemical processes to reduce the inherent risk associated with metal-contaminated soils. It presents a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of in situ immobilization and inactivation of toxic metals by means of plants, microorganisms and invertebrates.

Metal Speciation and Contamination of Soil provides a thorough overview of the biogeochemical processes governing the behavior, transport, and bioavailability of heavy metals in contaminated soils and suggests alternative approaches for effective remediation. This important new book contains contributions from experts in various disciplines who explore the issues from theoretical, experimental, and pragmatic perspectives. Topics include redox chemistry, kinetics of metal reactions, spectroscopic characterization of metal ion reactions at surface, modeling hydrologic transport phenomena and colloid-associated transport of metals through the soil profile to ground water, and remediation alternatives.

This book is an up-to-date treatise on the impact of heavy metal pollution of agricultural soils primarily resulting from long-term application of wastewater, industrial effluents and sewage sludge, and atmospheric deposition. It addresses soil health, soil-microbe interactions, heavy metal accumulation in soil, behavior of metals in soil and bioremediation besides other pertinent topics.

Written by a multidisciplinary group of scientists from around the globe Environmental Restoration of Metals-Contaminated Soils provides a summary of the current environmental remediation technology. Topics include: Physical-Chemical processes for in situ remediation by adding amendments for stabilization The mechanics of metal retention and release from soils Chemical remediation method for soil contaminated with CD and Pb The effect of soil pH on the distribution of metals among soil fractions Physical and electrical separation methods for soil remediation Relationship between the phytoavailability and the extractability of heavy metals An overview on environmental restoration of Se-contaminated soils Trace elements in the soil-plant system under tropical environment The process of metal removal by chelation using amino acids The effects of natural zeolelite and bentonite on the phytoavailability of heavy metals Metal uptake by agricultural crops from sewage-sludge treated soils In many cases an integrated approach to the remediation of metals contaminated soil yields the best results. Environmental Restoration of Metals-Contaminated Soils explores the emerging issues of the biogeochemistry of trace elements in the environment and provides an approach combining elements from biology, geochemistry, hydrology, and soil physics and chemistry.

Understanding the mechanisms associated with metal complexes and the sequestering metal contaminants in the environment is essential for effective remediation. Heavy Metal Release in Soils describes and quantifies desorption/release kinetics and dissolution reactions in the release of heavy metals from soil. The book focuses on: New techniques - microscopic surface techniques, NMR and electrophoresis, XAFS, SFM, and time-resolved ATR-FTIR Theoretical analysis and kinetic approaches - adsorption/desorption hysteresis, competitive sorption and transport, multi-component models, speciation kinetics, isotherms and soil and metal parameters, and the role of soil properties on transport Applications - arsenic speciation and mobility in contaminated soils, modeling activity of CD, Zn, and Cu in contaminated soils, and in situ chemical immobilization A timely addition to the literature, this book highlights the desorption/release mechanisms for the purpose of resolving remediation dilemmas in contaminated environments. It gives you the added advantage of case studies at both the microscopic and macroscopic scales, and provides both experimental and numerical investigations. With contributions from an international panel of authors, Heavy Metals Release in Soils fills a gap in the current literature concerned with subsurface contaminant fate and transport processes.