Arsenic contamination, consequences and remediation techniques: A review

•Soil and water As contamination emerged as a serious threat.•As causes various several fatal diseases in human beings.•Use of various techniques could be a option for removal of As from water and soil.•Electro-remediation, membrane technologies and phytoremediation are seem to be suitable.•Further research is needed to generate new techniques for As free life.

The exposure to low or high concentrations of arsenic (As), either due to the direct consumption of As contaminated drinking water, or indirectly through daily intake of As contaminated food may be fatal to the human health. Arsenic contamination in drinking water threatens more than 150 millions peoples all over the world. Around 110 millions of those peoples live in 10 countries in South and South-East Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Taiwan and Vietnam. Therefore, treatment of As contaminated water and soil could be the only effective option to minimize the health hazard. Therefore, keeping in view the above facts, an attempt has been made in this paper to review As contamination, its effect on human health and various conventional and advance technologies which are being used for the removal of As from soil and water.