Abstract
Contaminated sediments exhibit many features and challenges that differentiate its assessment and remediation from that of contaminated soil. Both soils and sediments tend to accumulate the hydrophobic organic and inorganic constituents that give rise to environmental contamination and risk. Sediments, however, are often found in dynamic environments that can lead to substantial contaminant migration. In general, contaminated sediment sites are a legacy of past contaminant discharge practices and the contaminants have accumulated in environments that are most conducive to such accumulation. Thus, a preponderance of contaminated sediment sites are in fine-grained, often organic-rich, sediments that are more likely to absorb hydrophobic contaminants and in environments where such sediments tend to accumulate, i.e., low energy depositional environments. Contaminated soils, however, often represent the source areas themselves and may exhibit a broader range of environmental and media properties. In addition, many of the processes that influence contaminant migration and fate in sediments (erosion, bioturbation, hyporheic exchange) are less pronounced or nonexistent at contaminated soil sites. Even when soils and sediments exhibit similar properties, there may be significant differences due to sediment characteristics. For example, the erosion characteristics of sediments are often controlled by the cohesive nature of fine-grained sediment depositions compared to the minimal cohesion of dry, wind-blown soils.
Moreover, sediments are often confined by one or more spatial dimensions, for example the containment of river sediments to the banks of a river and the adjacent floodplain, limiting the dilution often associated with migration. Thus, contaminated sediment sites may exhibit elevated concentrations and potential risks over large areas or distances compared to many contaminated soil sites. Contaminated sediment sites, by definition, are also associated with large amounts of water, which both complicates their assessment and management but also enhances the potential exposure and risk, for example to aquatic animals and organisms that depend upon them for food.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
REFERENCES
Accardi-Dey AM, Gschwend PM. 2002. Assessing the combined roles of natural organic matter and black carbon as sorbents in sediments. Environ Sci Technol 36:21–29.
Baker JR, Mihelcic JR, Luehrs DC, Hickey JP. 1997. Evaluation of estimation methods for organic carbon normalized sorption coefficients. Water Environ Res 69:136–145.
Boudreau BP. 1997. Diagenetic Models and Their Implementation: Modelling Transport and Reactions in Aquatic Sediments. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany. 414 p.
Boudreau BP, Algar C, Johnson BD, Croudace I, Reed A, Furukawa Y, Dorgan KM, Jumars PA, Grader AS, Gardiner BS. 2005. Bubble growth and rise in soft sediments. Geol 33: 517–520.
Chapra SC. 1999. Surface Water Quality Modeling. McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA, USA.
Compeau GC, Bartha R. 1985. Sulfate-reducing bacteria: Principal methylators of mercury in anoxic estuarine sediment. Appl Environ Microbiol 50:498–502.
DiToro DM. 2001. Sediment Flux Modeling. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, USA. 624 p.
Erten MB, Gilbert R, El Mohtar CS, Reible DD. 2011. Development of a laboratory procedure to evaluate the consolidation potential of soft contaminated sediments. Geotech Test J 34:10.1520/GTJ103689.
Ghosh U, Zimmerman JR, Luthy RG. 2003. PCB and PAH speciation among particle types in contaminated harbor sediments and effects on PAH bioavailability. Environ Sci Technol 37:2209–2217.
Gustafsson Ö, Haghseta F, Chan C, MacFarlane J, Gschwend PM. 1997. Quantification of the dilute sedimentary soot phase: Implications for PAH speciation and bioavailability. Environ Sci Technol 31:203–209.
Hong YS, Kinney KA, Reible DD. 2011a. Acid volatile sulfides oxidation and metals (Mn, Zn) release upon sediment resuspension: Laboratory experiment and model development. Environ Toxicol Chem 30:564–575.
Hong YS, Kinney AK, Reible DD. 2011b. Effect of pH and salinity on sediment metals release and early diagenesis. Environ Toxicol Chem 30:1775–1784.
Johnson BD, Boudreau BP, Gardiner BS, Maass R. 2002. Mechanical response of sediments to bubble growth. Mar Geol 187:347–363.
Lyman WJ, Reehl WF, Rosenblatt DH, eds. 1990. Handbook of Chemical Property Estimation Methods. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, USA.
Millington RJ, Quirk JP. 1961. Permeability of porous solids. Trans Faraday Soc 57:1200–1207.
Osovitz CJ, Julian D. 2002. Burrow irrigation behavior of Urechis caupo, a filter-feeding marine invertebrate, in its natural habitat. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 245:149–155.
Reible DD, Popov V, Valsaraj KT, Thibodeaux LJ, Lin F, Dikshit M, Todaro MA, Fleeger JW. 1996. Contaminant fluxes from sediment due to tubificid oligochaete bioturbation. Water Res 30:704–714.
Reible DD. 2008. Contaminant Processes in Sediments. In Garcia M, ed, Sedimentation Engineering-American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Manual Volume 110, pp 959–979.
Savant SA, Reible DD, Thibodeaux LJ. 1987. Convective transport within stable river sediments. Water Resour Res 23:1763–1768.
Sawyer AH, Cardenas MB, Bomar A, Mackey M. 2009. Impact of dam operations on hyporheic exchange in the riparian zone of a regulated river. Hydrol Proc 23:2129–2137.
Sawyer AH, Bayani Cardenas M, Buttles J. 2011. Hyporheic exchange due to channel-spanning logs. Water Resour Res 47:W08502, doi:10.1029/2010WR010484.
Schwarzenbach R, Gschwend PM, Imboden DM. 2003. Environmental Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed. Wiley-Interscience, Hoboken, NJ, USA.
Thoms SR, Matisoff G, McCall PL, Wang X. 1995. Models for Alteration of Sediments by Benthic Organisms. Project 92-NPS-2, Water Environment Research 3 Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA.
USEPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 1994. ARCS Assessment Guidance Document. EPA 905-B94-002. Great Lakes National Program Office, Chicago, IL, USA.
Yuan QZ, Valsaraj KT, Reible DD. 2009. A model for contaminant and sediment transport via gas ebullition through a sediment cap. Environ Eng Sci 26:1381–1391.
Warner KA, Roden EE, Bonzongo J-C. 2003. Microbial mercury transformation in anoxic freshwater sediments under iron reducing and other electron-accepting conditions. Environ Sci Technol 37:2159–2165.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reible, D.D. (2014). Sediment and Contaminant Processes. In: Reible, D. (eds) Processes, Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments. SERDP ESTCP Environmental Remediation Technology, vol 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6726-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6726-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6725-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6726-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)