Abstract
With respect to sediment pollution responses of ecotoxicological tests may differ from those of biochemical test systems and moreover both tests are indicating effects instead of simply measuring of chemical concentrations. Because most test results of sediment investigations are commonly given as inhibition values and sediment pollution by chemicals is measured by their concentrations a comparative evaluation of sediments by means of both test results and chemicals at the same time has to consider different scales. Both data transformations on a common scale (standardization) and aggregations lead to loss of information and hamper the interpretation of results. In order to avoid merging of data and to circumvent often-crucial data transformations, partial ordering is used for evaluation of sediment samples from German rivers. The aim here is to compare the evaluation of river sections by different parameter groups, namely biochemical and ecotoxicological tests, as well as concentrations of organic pollutants, heavy metals etc. Fuzzy cluster analysis as a pre-processing step is additionally used to understand the pollution pattern that is given by each test result. It is shown that for most of the river sections, test systems among each other and also compared to chemical concentrations yield different quality pattern and therefore lead to different Hasse diagrams. Sole exception is a bayou where the sediment is undisturbed by shipping traffic and sewage. Moreover, as a consequence of varying pollution pattern during the sampling period (over several years), only for a few river sections it is possible to derive distinct temporal changes: Except for the nematode sediment contact test, where all parameters are significantly correlated, this holds for both ecotoxicological and biochemical tests, and for chemical concentrations. Furthermore, for one river section it could be observed that chemical concentrations indicate a decline of contamination, whereas ecotoxicological parameters point to an increased toxicity. With respect to the development of a classification system for river sediments it is recommended to take care in the selection of parameters and to base it at least at two parameter groups.
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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Pudenz, S., Heininger, P. (2006). Comparative Evaluation and Analysis of Water Sediment Data. In: Brüggemann, R., Carlsen, L. (eds) Partial Order in Environmental Sciences and Chemistry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-33970-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-33970-1_5
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