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GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR USING THE SEDIMENT QUALITY TRIAD
Citation:
Chapman, P. M., B. Anderson, S. Carr, V. Engle, R. Green, J. Hameedi, M. Harmon, P. Haverland, J. Hyland, C. Ingersoll, E. Long, J. Rodgers, M. Salazar, P. Sibley, P. J. Smith, R. Swartz, B. Thompson, AND H. Windom. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR USING THE SEDIMENT QUALITY TRIAD. Marine Pollution Bulletin 34(6):368-372, (1997).
Description:
The Sediment Quality Triad(Fig. 1),developed in the mid-1980s (Long and Chapman, 1985), is now widely used for conducting integrated assessments of sediment quality based on measures of chemistry,toxicity and benthos(e.g.,Canfield et al., 1994,1996,submitted; Carr et al., 1996;Chapman, 1992;Chapman et al., 1987, 1991a, 1996; Green et al., 1993; Swartz et al., 1994; Paine et al., 1996). General guidance on using the Triad was originally provided by Chapman (1990), subsequently updated by Chapman et al (1991b) and most recently by Chapman (1996). In September 1996 the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held a workshop on the Triad in Seattle, WA USA. The purpose of this workshop included: 1. reviewing the status of the Triad as an assessment tool for environmental management; 2. discussing conceptual and analytical issues associated with measures of contamination, toxicity assessments and in situ biological changes, and recommending methods to improve such measures; and 3. discussing the feasibility and options to derive a numerical index to describe the condition of the coastal environment based on the Triad. This workshop resulted in consensus statements that, taken together, provide general guidelines for using the Triad. These are reported herein together with recommendations for further development of the Triad.