The microbial ecology of land and water contaminated with radioactive waste; towards the development of bioremediation options for the nuclear industry

The high financial and environmental costs associated with remediation of land contaminated through 60 years of global nuclear activity has underpinned the development of new passive in situ bioremediation processes for sites contaminated with nuclear waste. Many of these processes rely on successfully harnessing newly discovered natural biogeochemical cycles of key radionuclides and fission products. Of particular note are strategies that involve enzymatic and indirect redox transformations of actinides such as uranium, neptunium and plutonium and fission products such as technetium. This chapter will discuss the recent advances that have been made in understanding the microbial colonization of radioactive environments and the biological basis of microbial transformations of radioactive waste in these settings. In addition, the impact of co-contaminants such as nitrate on both the microbial ecology of sediments and radionuclide speciation will also be discussed.