Microbial treatment of industrial effluents: future policy for aquatic biodiversity conservation

ABSTRACT

In an era of rapid industrialization, the discharge of contaminated effluent into natural environments has significantly increased with a direct, negative impact on aquatic biodiversity. It is not only discharged industrial effluent, but also products discharged from wastewater treatment plants, that disrupt biogeochemical cycles, which have direct relationships with aquatic biodiversity. Due to this situation, microbial biodiversity is also affected. Microbial wastewater treatment is a sustainable way to protect aquatic biodiversity, for which environmental microbiome conservation is very important. This article explores the delicate topic of biodiversity conservation, specifically aquatic biodiversity conservation, and is aimed at improving and informing aquatic biodiversity policies.

Key policy insights

• In this time of fast industrialization, microbial biodiversity in the aquatic world is getting impacted due to wastewater effluents.

• Designing and revising the policies/laws required to conserve microbial biodiversity for the sustainability of our planet via bioregional management, and public awareness programmes.

• Microbiome conservation will play a key role in maintaining the global aquatic biome, which is at ecological risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Microbial treatment
• industrial effluents
• biodiversity
• microbial conservation
• biogeochemical cycle
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shrabana Sarkar

Shrabana Sarkar is a postdoctoral researcher at Centro de Investigación de Estudios Avanzados del Maule, Universidad Católica del Maule. Her main area of research is natural microbiology of extreme environments including the application of microbes to solve environmental problems and sustainable water resources management.

Cynthia Meza

Cynthia Meza is a doctoral student in Translational Biotechnology at Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile. Her research interest broadly includes natural resources, and applied microbiology.

Aparna Banerjee

Aparna Banerjee is an assistant professor at Centro de Investigación de Estudios Avanzados del Maule of Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile. As a researcher, her major interests are natural resources, applied microbiology, biodiversity, and microbiome conservation.