METALS IN WATER Global Sources, Significance, and Treatment

Heavy metals are found in the earth’s crust naturally and get into the water and food web by diverse geochemical cycles. Various anthropogenic activities such as agricultural, industrial, transportation, and mining operations contribute to a significant proportion of heavy metal pollution in water resources. Some heavy metals are essential for human life in small quantities, but their large amounts in water and food chain are toxic for humans and plants. Heavy metals are nonbiodegradable, and thus, they persist for a long time in the environment and have the ability of biomagnification and bioaccumulation. Heavy metals adversely impact human health. Hence, remediation and removal of heavy metals are necessary prior to water consumption. Adequate knowledge of heavy metal detection sensors and toxicity indices is required to deal with heavy metal contamination in water resources.This book elaborates on different techniques for the detection and measurement of metal contamination in water resources. It enumerates various toxicity indices of heavy metals. This book discusses natural and anthropogenic sources of metals in the water resources. It also discusses geogenic and airborne deposition of heavy metals in water resources. It then discusses anthropogenic sources of heavy metal contamination like farming, mining, industrial operation, and transportation. It discusses heavy metal pollution in different aquatic ecosystems like surface water, groundwater, and marine environment. This book also elaborates on the impact of heavy metals on human health. Furthermore, it discusses recovery of precious heavy metals from industrial effluents and wastewater. It also includes various traditional and recent remediation techniques for wastewater treatment. It then discusses heavy metal remediation using low-cost adsorbent, membrane technology, phytoremediation, and nanotechnology. It includes time series analysis of dissolved trace metals in the river ecosystems.

We are grateful to all the authors whose contributions have made this book possible. We are confident that the chapters presented in this book will act as a good source of knowledge and reference material for the scientists and researchers in their research work. We sincerely welcome feedback from all the valuable readers and critics.