Emerging Environmental Contaminants: Need for Mitigation Strategies

Emerging Environmental Contaminants (EECs) are industrial effluents that poses risks to ecological integrity throughout the globe as these are the significant contributors of environmental pollution. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS) - any chemical or microorganism (synthetic or natural) not under regular surveillance, suspected for adverse human or ecological effects is considered as Emerging Environmental Contaminant (EEC). Apart from environment issues, these EECs that includes wide array of micropollutants also have serious concerns towards human health. Equally known as Emerging pollutants (EPs), these EECs include perfluorinated compounds, human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, fire retardants, gasoline additives, UV filters, manufactured nanoparticles, synthetic fragrances, personal care products, disinfectants, microplastics and preservatives etc. EECs contaminate all the three abiotic components ie. air, water and soil; therefore, are potentially harmful for microorganisms, plants as well as animals (biotic components) in the biosphere. The diverse groups comprising EECs are unregulated, thereby are increasingly accumulating in the environment. These EECs are continuously challenging the agricultural ecosystem by way of the abiotic as well as biotic stresses. These anthropogenically generated compounds are accumulative in nature leading to both soil as well as water bodies pollution. In recent years, the climate change due to accumulative EECs has led to disturbed ecosystems at different zones of the globe posing numerous challenges to food for human wellbeing and forage for domestic animals. The challenges offered by EECs towards their control measures include lack of perception, misapprehension, scarcity of scientific investigations and explorations for their occurrence, estimations, intensification as the most common hurdles to researcher in unravelling the strategies that may cope these EECs.