ABSTRACT
Groundwater serves as primary source of drinking water in most of the Asian countries, including India. Due to increasing population, urbanization, industrialization and agricultural development, our country’s demand for drinking and irrigation groundwater is increasing continuously. On the other hand, due to industrialization and developmental process, water quality is also deteriorating as water aquifers are under stress condition. In terms of groundwater and soil toxicity, fluoride and nitrate are the most important ion contaminants due to their high potency and cause serious health hazards such as fluorosis and methemoglobinemia. The need of the hour is to improve prevention and recovery strategies to mitigate the effects of this pollution. Already numerous modern methods of defluoridation such as coagulation precipitation, electro-dialysis, nano-filtration, etc. are available. However, these traditional approaches have certain drawbacks including higher cost, heavy energy consumption, secondary contaminants and lower efficiency.
In this regard, bioremediation could be a cost saving and environmental friendly approach to remove fluoride and nitrate compounds from groundwater. Microbes with degradation or adsorption potential can be used to bioremediate fluoride and nitrate contaminated water. In the present chapter, an attempt has been made to compile the knowledge related to bioremediation of fluoride and nitrate compounds in suggestive manner, which may be helpful for researchers, authorities and stakeholders to work towards bioremediation of groundwater.
