| Number: | 2004-003-3-600 |
|---|---|
| Start: | 01 July 2004 |
| End: | 31 December 2007 |
To provide the scientific community with a critical evaluation by world-renowned international scientists of the state-of-the-art on the biophysico-chemical processes of metals and metalloids in soil environments including their interactions with soil components (clay minerals, organics, microorganisms). Specifics of heavy metal and metalloid mobility in different soil environments, including the rhizosphere, as influenced by physics, chemistry and biology of soil and their interactions will be examined. Finally, their speciation, mobility, bioavailability and toxicity and innovative restoration strategies of polluted soils will be addressed. In addition, the book would provide a source of reference materials for students, professors, researchers and practitioners.
Pollution induced by heavy metals and metalloids in soils is a very dangerous environmental problem because, as compared with other kinds of pollution (atmosphere and water), the soil environment has a much lower ability to recover. Furthermore, over 99% of environmental pollutants are bound with soil and sediment particles.
Heavy metals are well recognized as potentially toxic to plants and other living organisms. However, the mere presence of a toxic element in soil may not adversely affect organisms if that element is not in a biologically, chemically, or physically available chemical form. In soil, heavy metals interact with clay minerals, humic substances, microorganisms, extracellular enzymes, biopolymers and other organic and inorganic ligands.
The behaviour of heavy metals and metalloids depends on chemical and physico-chemical as well as biological factors associated with the microbial activities. Dynamics and equilibria of these elements in soil environments are significantly influenced by structural, surface and solution chemistry of soils and interactions of soil minerals with organic components and microorganisms. These physicochemical-biological interactions would influence the transfer of these elements from the inorganic and organic soil constituents to the soil solution and to plants.
Scientists interested in soil chemistry and mineralogy, soil biochemistry, plant nutrition, physiology and environmental sciences must interact with each other for understanding the biophysico-chemical processes of these pollutants in soil environments.
The present project is to prepare a book by a multidisciplinary group of soil and environmental scientists to provide the scientific community with a critical evaluation of the state-of-the-art on the processes of these elements in soil environments, their speciation, mobility, bioavailability and toxicity and their impact on the development of innovative restoration strategies. Biogeochemical processes operating in soil environments that affect the fate, behavior, and bioavailability of metals and metalloids is currently an area of active research. Yet, a comprehensive and detailed book of the state-of-knowledge is absent from scientific literature. This book will bring a critical qualitative and quantitative review of the fundamentals of the physics and chemistry of heavy-metal and metalloid interactions in soils and the influence of soil microorganisms on these processes. The latest advances in spectroscopy to study various aspect of heavy metal and metalloid interactions with inorganic and organic components will be reviewed. Furthermore, a chapter on the fractionation in relation to understanding the mobility of trace elements in environmental solids will be included.
The proposed book is insightful and different from other books, e.g. the book sponsored by SETAC Press. In fact, our book will focus more stringently on the fundamental processes, whereas in the SETAC book the application of the knowledge of the fundamentals to risk assessment is given a central place. In spite of a number of books that deal with different aspects of this topic, they are much more general or limited in coverage than that is proposed in our book.
It is proposed to have about 19 chapters in this book. These proposed chapter authors are leading international authorities on the subject matter.