Passive sampling in contaminated sediment assessment: building consensus to improve decision making

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Analytical Chemistry
• Ecotoxicology

Background:

• Contaminated sediments present a global environmental management challenge, impacting water body uses due to legacy pollution.
• Assessing risks is difficult due to challenges in measuring contaminant bioavailability, specifically the freely dissolved concentration (Cfree).
• Traditional chemical analyses have limitations in accurately reflecting contaminant activity in sediments.

Discussion:

• Passive sampling methods (PSMs) offer a breakthrough by quantifying trace levels of Cfree in interstitial water.
• PSMs overcome limitations of current predictive models, providing a more direct measure of contaminant bioavailability.
• This advancement facilitates a paradigm shift in risk assessment for contaminated sediments.

Key Insights:

• PSMs enable precise measurement of freely dissolved contaminant concentrations (Cfree) at trace levels.
• This improves the accuracy of bioavailability assessment compared to conventional methods.
• PSMs reduce uncertainty in risk assessments and increase confidence in sediment management decisions.

Outlook:

• The series reviews PSM applications for organic and metal(loid) contaminants in sediments.
• It outlines the rationale for using PSMs over traditional analyses in risk assessment.
• Future research and communication needs for PSM deployment in sediment management are highlighted.