Metallic Contamination and Its Toxicity

Contents: Preface. 1. Effects of Selenium Seed Priming for Reduction of Arsenic Induced Phytotoxicity in Rice/S. C. Santra and Debojyoti Moulick. 2. Arsenic Pollution and Some Possible Mitigation Processes/Ruma Das, Shrila Das, Mandira Barman, Sunanda Biswas and Arkabanee Mukherjee. 3. On the Extreme Tolerance and Removal of Arsenic by a Facultative Marine Fungus Aspergillus sydowii/Anjana K. Vala. 4. Root Colonization, Cadmium Uptake in Finger Millet (Eluesine coracana L.) Under the Effects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi/Deeksha Krishna and H. K. Sachan. 5. Scenario of Heavy Metal Occurrence, Toxicity Chemistry and their Environment and Health Impact Particularly in Contrast to Chromium/Nitesh Dhiman and Markandeya. 6. Chromium Toxicity in Water and its Removal Methods/Bhavtosh Sharma and Vikas Chander. 7. Effect of Heavy Metal Toxicity to the Operational Parameters of Wastewater Treatment Plant During the Indian Festival of Colors/Akansha and Ankur Rajpal. 8. Half-Molecule ABC Transporters and Heavy Metal Detoxification in Animals/Bhaskar Ganguly. 9. Fish Bio-marker: An Appealing Tool for Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in the Aquatic Ecosystem/J. Nath and N. Debnath. 10. Toxicity of Heavy Metals/Disha Pant and Kamal Pant. 11. Heavy Metals Contamination and its Impact on Human and Environmental Health/Poonam Gusain and Nishant Gupta. 12. An Over View of Metal Toxicity in Agricultural Soil and Plants/Ganesh Chandra Kisku, Vinay Kumar, Pokhraj Sahu and Pramod Kumar. 13. Heavy Metal Contamination and its Impact on the Fertility Value of Soil in Agroecosytems/Priyanka Sahu, Sunita Sharma and Khursheed Ahmad Wani. 14. Characterization, Toxicity Assessment and Elimination of Heavy Metals from the Textile Waste Water Effluents/Bipin J. Agrawal. 15. Phytoremediation as a Potentially Promising Technology: Prospects and Future/Vikas Kumar. 16. Plant Mediated Transformation and Habitat Restoration: Phytoremediation an Eco-Friendly Approach/M. K. Jhariya, D. K. Yadav and A. Banerjee.

Heavy metals, individually and their compounds can affect human health. These are all naturally occurring substances which are often present in the environment at low levels. In high levels, these can be dangerous. Toxic heavy metals entering the ecosystem may lead to geo-accumulation, bio-accumulation and bio-magnifications. Due to their widespread use in human activities such as industry, agriculture and even as medicine numerous health risks may be associated with exposure to these substances. Their toxicity depends on several factors including the dose, route of exposure, and chemical species, as well as the age, gender, genetics, and nutritional status of exposed individuals. These metallic elements are considered systemic toxicants that are known to induce multiple organ damage, even at lower levels of exposure.

Considering the importance of this subject, the present book “Metallic contamination and its Toxicity” gives an overview of the main features of heavy metal and their health consequences. The present book provides sufficient information on toxicology and risk assessment & remedial measures. This book will be useful to Environmentalist, Scientist, Researchers, Industrialists, Social workers and Toxicologists providing useful data. This will help to setup standards/guideline to protect human health & environmental hazard from heavy metal. (jacket)