A Review on Heavy Metal Contamination in Agricultural Soil

Soil contamination is a major environmental issue worldwide. Soil is a complex structure and contains mainly five major components i.e. mineral matter water air organic matter and living organisms. The quantity of these components in the soil does not remain the same but varies with the locality. Therefore it is essential to make an adequate land management to maintain the quality of agricultural soil. Presence of different kinds of heavy metals such as As Cd Cr Hg Pb Co Ni Cu Mn and Zn etc. Those are important environmental pollutants that cause toxic effects to plants and microorganisms in soil; thus lessening productivity and posing dangerous threats to the agro‑ecosystems. The sources of heavy metals in agricultural soil in most countries include natural source mining smelting agrochemicals sewage sludge applications livestock manure fly ash and waste water uses. In agriculture fields is commonly contaminated by using fertilizers. Systematic remediation technologies for contaminated soils are addressed as well which include physical/chemical remediation phytoremediation microbial remediation and integrated remediation.