Sediment quality guideline concentrations

To evaluate the potential risk of Ebro river sediments, the concentrations detected were compared to actual legislation. The WFD does not specifically address sediment management [95]. In contrast to this, the Canadian sediment quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life [96] provide data for different types of sediments and include 33 compounds, PAHs and DDTs among them. All the PAHs included in the Canadian guidelines are present above the limit, ranging from 3% of the samples for naphthalene to 90% for dibenzo(a,h)anthracene. Special attention has to be paid to benzo(a)pyrene and dibenzo(a,h)anthracene, considered... 

Various sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) and benchmark values have been proposed by several states and federal agencies in the USA and other countries. However, none of these benchmarks have been adopted for widespread regulatory applications. Concentrations of TEQ in... 

A comparison of the concentration of PCBs and OCPs in Singapore s coastal marine sediments with the sediment quality guideline specified by the USEPA (1997) and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME, 2002) (Table 15.8), and comparison with levels of contaminants reported from other locations in Asia, Singapore s marine sediments can be classified as moderately contaminated with probable ecotoxicological impacts to marine organisms. 

The TU approach, combined with equilibrium partitioning (EqP) and (Q)SAR modeling, was also used by Swartz and DiToro (1997) to develop the XPAII model to predict the toxicity of sediment-associated PAH compounds. A (Q)SAR and EqP method is also presented by Swartz and DiToro (1997) for modeling narcotic chemicals in sediments. In this approach, the sediment quality guideline for a mixture of narcotic chemicals that exhibit additive toxicity could be expressed as the sum of the fraction of the OC-normalized sediment concentrations divided by the SQG for each... 

Table 2. Concentrations of trace elements and hydrophobic organic compounds found on suspended sediments at Barton Springs and Barton Creek, in mg/kg. Sediment quality guidelines (PEL and TEL) are from Environment Canada (1998), except those for T-PAH, which are from MacDonald et al. (2000). 

United States and Canada have water quality guidelines and European countries banned the use of alkylphenol polyethoxylates. To date, there is no standard available for regulating APs in the environmental media of South Korea. Most of the sites investigated throughout the South Korean peninsula are not expected to be sufficiently contaminated with APs or BPA to cause adverse effects. However, NP concentrations in some waters and sediments were over the guidelines of the USA and Canada. This means that aquatic organisms can be adversely affected by NP exposure in some aquatic systems. Therefore, actions should be taken to implement the regulations of NP to protect the aquatic ecosystems in South Korea. 

Chemical tests can be used in two different ways. They can be regulatory if a limit is specified for a certain substance in an effluent and they can be predictive by calculating, from the discharge, the concentration expected in the environment both are achieved by comparison with established quality guidelines for water, sediment or soil (Scroggins, 1999). 

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