This book provides valuable insights into the actual international state of sediment quality assessment and helps to set up sediment quality criteria.

Inhalt
1 Sediment Quality Assessment: Chemical and Biological Approaches.- Laboratory Studies.- 2 The Influence of Diagenetic Processes on the Exchange of Trace Contaminants at the Sediment-Water Interface.- 3 Interaction of Pesticides with River Sediments and Characterization of Organic Matter of the Sediments.- 4 Partitioning Behaviour of Phenols Between Water and Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic Interfaces.- 5 Sorption Properties of Biofilms.- 6 Ecotoxicity of Certain Heavy Metals Affecting Bacteria-Mediated Biogeochemical Pathways in Sediments.- 7 Bioassays on Sediment Toxicity.- Field Studies.- 8 Trace Element Diagenesis in Polluted Sediments of the River Elbe Estuary.- 9 Mercury Distribution and Speciation in a Polluted Fluvial System.- 10 Organotin Compounds in Sediments of the Rivers Elbe and Mulde.- Modelling Aspects.- 11 Advective Transport of Interacting Solutes: The Chromatographic Model.