Bioassay responses and effects on benthos after pilot remediations in the delta of the rivers Rhine and Meuse.

Chemical and biological monitoring was carried out for 5 years following pilot remediations at two locations in the Rhine-Meuse delta. The remediations consisted of partial excavation of the contaminated sediments, followed by applying a clean layer of sandy material on top. After the remediation, a new silty sediment top layer was formed exhibiting a lower toxicity in five sediment/sediment pore water bioassays.

Tenax extraction mimics benthic and terrestrial bioavailability of organic compounds.

Biota to sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) are widely used to describe the potential accumulation of organic contaminants in organisms. From field studies it is known that these BSAFs can vary dramatically between sediments of different origin, which is possibly explained by the variation in bioavailability of organic contaminants in sediments. In the present study it is shown that the variability in BSAF values for different sediment samples obtained at two Dutch freshwater sites could largely be explained by the variation in Tenax-extractable concentrations in these sediments.

Statistical analysis of sediment toxicity by additive monotone regression splines.

Modeling nonlinearity and thresholds in dose-effect relations is a major challenge, particularly in noisy data sets. Here we show the utility of nonlinear regression with additive monotone regression splines. These splines lead almost automatically to the estimation of thresholds.