General Distribution among Sediments

Uptake is the process by which chemicals (either dissolved in water or sorbed onto sediment and/or suspended solids) are transferred into and onto an organism. For surfactants, this generally occurs in a series of steps a rapid initial step controlled by sorption, where the surface phenomenon is especially relevant then a diffusion step, when the chemical crosses biological barriers, and later steps when it is transported and distributed among the tissues and organs. 

Arsenic was distributed among the operationally defined fractions of the sediment solids of a sediment core collected in September, 1977 as shown in Figure 3. Generally, the order of abundance of As in the fractions was OH" (Fe and Al) > oxalate (amorphous or occluded) Cl" (exchangeable) ... 

From these data, aquatic fate models construct outputs delineating exposure, fate, and persistence of the compound. In general, exposure can be determined as a time-course of chemical concentrations, as ultimate (steady-state) concentration distributions, or as statistical summaries of computed time-series. Fate of chemicals may mean either the distribution of the chemical among subsystems (e.g., fraction captured by benthic sediments), or a fractionation among transformation processes. The latter data can be used in sensitivity analyses to determine relative needs for accuracy and precision in chemical measurements. Persistence of the compound can be estimated from the time constants of the response of the system to chemical loadings. 

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