title: Sediment contact tests as a tool for the assessment of sediment quality in German waters.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz, Germany. feiler@bafg.de
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Feiler
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Höss
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ahlf
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gilberg
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hammers-Wirtz
authors.forename: Henner
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hollert
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meller
authors.forename: Helga
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Neumann-Hensel
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ottermanns
authors.forename: Thomas-Benjamin
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Seiler
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Spira
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Heininger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001173:Arthrobacter; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D005858:Germany; D009835:Oligochaeta; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018675:Toxicity Tests / Q000379:methods*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity*; D015027:Zebrafish
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical