A Weight of Evidence Approach to Characterize Sediment Quality Using Laboratory and Field Assays: An Example forSpanish Coasts

Abstract

AbstractDuring recent years, different initiatives have been carried out to use multiple lines of evidence with the aim to assess sediment quality in aquatic ecosystems. One of the most useful and widely used methods was the design and application of integrative assessments to establish sediment quality (1). These methods comprise the synoptic use of different methodologies such as chemical analysis in sediments to establish contamination, in sediment toxicity to address the biological effects under laboratory conditions, chemical residue analyses in organism tissues to determine the bioavailability of the contaminants, and the structure of the benthic community or the histopathological lesions in resident organisms to determine the biological effects under field conditions (1, 2). One of these integrative assessments widely used in the studies of sediment quality is the Sediment Quality Triad that was used synoptically for the first time in Spain and in Europe in the early 1990s (3, 4). This method also permits using convenient statistical tools to derive sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), which can be used to derive concentrations associated and not associated with the biological effect in the overlapping area of the different lines of evidences (Fig. 1).