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The rapid pace of urbanization and industrialization makes soil and environment polluted, which may cause a severe issue of food chain contamination. Discharge of heavy metal(oid)s from industrial and municipal wastewater streams, and groundwater contamination causes a reduction in crop yields, degradation of soils and ruin quality. Cultivated Asian rice and heavy metal(oid)s have two ways of interaction, either heavy metal(oid)s accumulation cause harmful effects on rice crop or rice plants possess their resistance mechanism to protect against the toxic effects of heavy metal(oid)s, their uptake, and translocation also detoxify the heavy metal(oids) contamination. Besides, several inorganic (liming and silicon) and organic (compost and biochar) amendments have been applied in the soils to reduce/immobilize heavy metal(oid)s stress in rice. Selection/development of rice varieties resistant to heavy metals stress and bioaccumulation, crop rotation, water management and exogenous application of microbes could be a reasonable approach to alleviate heavy metal(oid)s toxicity in rice. This article review that heavy metals, such as aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, and lead are the major environmental pollutants, mainly in the places having more significant anthropogenic pressure. In agricultural areas, accumulation of heavy metals is of primary concern because of their adverse effects. This review article also briefly discusses the impact of the heavy metals on human health, soil, plants, and their metabolic mechanisms induced by the biological and geological redistribution of heavy metals by soil and water pollution.

The goal of this study was to determine how surface and wastewater contribute to the contamination of the environment with an extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli (ESBL E. coli). Water samples (n = 32) were collected from eight different locations of Islamabad and processed for microbiological and molecular analyses of E. coli and ESBL E. coli. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out to determine the resistance pattern of the isolates. A total of 21 water samples were contaminated with E. coli and 15 isolates were identified as ESBL producers harboring blaTEM (40%) and blaCTX-M (33.33%) genes. Interestingly, all the ESBL E. coli isolates showed the least resistance against second-generation Cephalosporins compared to other generations. Moreover, the study showed that the aquatic environment is harboring multidrug-resistant E. coli; therefore, it may act as a source of transmission to humans. The recovery of ESBL E. coli isolates resistant to higher generation Cephalosporins, Monobactam, and Carbapenems from water samples indicated an alarming situation. Thus, there is an urgent need to treat water efficiently for microbial decontamination to minimize the transmission of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria.

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