Conceptual Background of Bioaccumulation in Environmental Science

Abstract

Environmental metal pollution is one of the serious global problems with severe health effects due to its persistence and accumulation in living organisms, these require biological strategies such as bioaccumulation for remediation, the main environmental contaminants are associated to water, soil, and air. Meanwhile, Bioaccumulation is the accumulation of pollutants in living organisms which enable to assess the risk related to their presence in the ecosystems. In other words; Bioaccumulation is the net result of all uptake and loss processes, such as respiratory and dietary uptake, and loss by egestion, metabolism, passive diffusion, transfer to offspring and growth. Hence, this paper provides the conceptual background of bioaccumulation factors, effect of heavy metals on the ecosystems, and the organisms involved in the processes as well as some fishes and plants responsible for bioaccumulation.