Xenobiotic Contamination in Soil Environment and Their Current Remediation Strategies

Xenobiotics are foreign chemicals generated by the activities of the most dominant species of the Earth and have the potential to get easily mixed with the natural environment. Their exposure is extremely catastrophic to almost all biotic components, including the soil microbes, crops, plants, animals, and human beings interrelated through food chains. Despite adopting various regulations and laws with an emphasis on totally degrading or minimizing xenobiotic compounds from the environment, their toxicity remains a huge concern due to their persistent nature and limited biodegradability. Biomagnification is prevalently associated with contaminants as a slow and progressive step-up process of piling up xenobiotics in tissues and organs. So, the utmost need for the degradation of these compounds is necessary for maintaining better soil quality and food safety in the future. However, the natural degradation process is not practically achievable; therefore, a complete, rapid, and eco-friendly degradation is always targeted to mineralize the xenobiotics within the soil. Considering the challenges related to these compounds, this study prioritizes the dissemination of in-depth knowledge of the present viable remediation strategies, such as phytoremediation, microbial remediation, nano remediation, bioaugmentation, computational methods, recombinant DNA technology, omics approaches, etc., to effectively reduce the overall lifetime of xenobiotics. Furthermore, this chapter also suggests avenues to search for new innovations for carrying out the remediation of xenobiotics in large contaminated areas that would give insight to the developing scientific community of upper level in solving the rising issues related to xenobiotic contamination in the soil environment.