Major Inorganic Pollutants Affecting Soil and Crop Quality

Inorganic pollutants are released into the environment due to activities of mining, industry, transportation and urban activities. Environmental risks associated with inorganic pollutants vary widely due to several complex interactions at both intracellular and extracellular levels. Salts of alkali metals degrade physical and chemical environment of rhizosphere soil affecting water and nutrient uptake as well as reduce rate of several nutrient cycling processes mediated by microbes with overall impact on nutrient use efficiency. Toxic heavy metals and metalloids interact quite strongly with soil constituents as compared to salts of alkali metals, rate of which however, depend on the element and their speciation. Although their mobility in soil is low, these elements disrupt biochemical processes in organisms even at low concentration affecting physiological activities. Toxicity to organisms and transformation reactions for inorganic pollutants with soil constituents and their consequences on transfer to organisms including plants are discussed in this chapter.