Chapter 13

Bioremediation of Heavy

Metals from Aquatic

Environments

Fariha Latif,^1,* Shahena Perveen,¹ Sana Aziz,²

Rehana Iqbal,¹ and Muhammad Mudassar Shahzad³

13.1 Introduction

The severe contamination of freshwater resources, particularly in developing countries, is

causing serious health hazards and environmental issues. Though aquatic pollution is not a novel

phenomenon, but the pace of the industrial revolution and urbanization have aggravated its negative

impacts on the aquatic environment. Predominant anthropogenic sources of aquatic contamination

include mining operations, untreated industrial effluents, domestic sewage, waste dump leachates

and combustion emissions. These sources are adding a number of pollutants including metallic ions,

polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls and other xenobiotics in the

natural aquatic ecosystems. Metallic ions toxicity affects the physiology and ecology of aquatic

organisms due to their specific properties of long persistence, bioaccumulation and biomagnification

in the food chain. Currently, all areas of the environment are being polluted by several chemical and

biological pollutants and the aquatic ecosystems are serving as a major repository for them. Among

these pollutants, metallic ions pollution is widespread and has become an issue of great concern

as metallic ions are indiscriminately discharged into freshwaters, deteriorating their quality and

ultimately affecting the inhabitant fish fauna.

13.1.1 Heavy Metals

Metalloids and metals having a density of more than 4000 kg m^–3 are called heavy metals. Most

of them are mostly poisonous at different concentrations (Shah et al. 2018). The concentration

can be higher, lower or moderate. Examples of heavy metals are Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Nickel

(Ni), Strontium (Sr), Molybdenum (Mo), Titanium (Ti), Lead (Pb), Cobalt (Co), Chromium (Cr),

Vanadium (V,) Mercury (Hg) and Tin (Sn) (Satyanarayana et al. 2019).

1 Institute of Zoology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.

2 Department of Zoology, Wildlife and Fisheries, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.

3 Department of Zoology, Division of Science & Technology, University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan.

* Corresponding author: farihalatif@bzu.edu.pk