Sediment contact tests as a tool for the assessment of sediment quality in German waters

Journal
Environmental toxicology and chemistry  
Volume
32
Issue
1
Start Page
144
End Page
155
Citation
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 32 (1): 144-155 (2013)
Publisher DOI
10.1002/etc.2024
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84871339793
PubMed ID
23027525
Publisher
Elsevier Science
A sediment contact test (SCT) battery consisting of five ecotoxicological test systems was applied to 21 native freshwater sediments characterized by a broad variety of geochemical properties and anthropogenic contamination. Higher plants (Myriophyllum aquaticum), nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans), oligochaetes (Lumbriculus variegatus), zebrafish embryos (Danio rerio), and bacteria (Arthrobacter globiformis), representing various trophic levels and exposure pathways, were used as test organisms. The test battery detected sediment toxicity caused by anthropogenic pollution, whereas the various tests provided site-specific, nonredundant information to the overall toxicity assessment. Based on the toxicity pattern derived from the test battery, the sediments were classified according to a newly proposed classification system for sediment toxicity assessment. The SCT-derived classification generally agreed well with the application of consensus-based sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), especially with regard to sediments with high toxic potential. For sediments with low to medium toxic potential, the SQGs often underestimated the toxicity that was detected by the SCTs, underpinning the need for toxicity tests in sediment quality assessment. © 2012 SETAC.
Subjects
Classification system
Contact tests
Sediment quality assessment
Sediment toxicity
Test battery
DDC Class
570: Biowissenschaften, Biologie
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften
Funding Organisations
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)  
More Funding Information
The present study was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grants 02WU0598 to 02WU0604).