Foreword

Abstract

In October 2002, the Fifth International Conference on Sediment Quality Assessment (SQA5) was held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, sponsored by the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society (AEHMS). Approximately 135 international scientists from 15 countries came together to discuss issues related to the sediment quality of various water bodies. The program consisted of 40 oral papers and 50 posters including Keynote lectures by D. Di Toro (U.S.A.), L. Thibodeaux (U.S.A.), P. Chapman (Canada), V. E. Forbes (Denmark), and A. P. Dufour (U.S.A.). The program was categorized in to the following themes: Sediment and watershed management;Sediment transport and contaminated flux;Weight of evidence and risk-based decision making;Microbial pathogens: Are sediments at risk; andEmerging technologies for assessment and remediation.This conference continued the successful tradition established through the preceeding four SQA conferences which were convened in Sweden (1994), Italy (1996), The Netherlands (1998) and Japan (2000). The next sediment quality meeting, SQA6, will be held in Antwerp, Belgium in August of this year. These conferences have followed the same objectives as AEHMS, addressing practical, ‘state-of-the-science’ aspects of sediment contaminant and stressor issues in aquatic ecosystems and the associated decision-making processes needed to protect and improve them. In the past 10 years, there have been dramatic improvements in the science of sediment assessment as well as many associated success stories featuring reduced impairment and ecosystem recovery. SQA5 in Chicago showcased continuing advances and understanding of complex interrelationships of the disciplines of ecology, chemistry, hydrology, toxicology, microbiology, weight-of-evidence decision making and modeling. The ten papers from this conference which appear in this issue of Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management show the wide range of exciting issues that characterize this dynamic field, ranging from molecular and cellular level tools to modeling of multiple ecosystem processes to holistic based management approaches. Another set of papers originating from the SQA5 conference are scheduled for publication in another special issue of the journal. We hope that these papers will provide ‘state-of-the-art’ knowledge in sediment quality assessment and encourage researchers and managers to participate in future SQA conferences as this field matures.