Methods for Sediment Toxicity Evaluation / 环境与健康杂志

ABSTRACT

Three widely used methods of sediment toxicity evaluation were introduced in the present paper, including organism toxicity tests, toxicity identification evaluation(TIE) and sediment quality guidelines(SQGs). Compared with the chemical analysis, toxicity tests have an advantage of taking the bioavailability of POPs into account, however, it fails to identify the causative toxicants. TIE, integrating with physicochemical analysis, implicates the specific pollutants in a tiered approach, and by which effective remediation can be designed accordingly. The sediment toxicity can be identified more quickly and appropriately by SQGs than by the former two methods. The differences among the different SQGs constituted by different standards may affect their values for toxicity evaluation. Extensive and reliable SQGs had been acquired to improve their utility. Finally, the combination of chemical analysis, toxicity tests and in situ bioassays will be the trend of sediment toxicity evaluation in the future.