Research Areas > Contaminants > Sediment Quality Assessment > Direct Effects in Bays

Project Group: Direct Effects on Benthic Infauna in Bays

SCCWRP Research

Bays are found where headlands or harbor works enclose an area of oceanic water within an indentation along the coast. Some examples of bays in California are Humboldt Bay, Bodega Harbor, San Francisco Bay, Morro Bay, Los Angeles Harbor, Newport Bay, Mission Bay, and San Diego Bay. Compared to offshore areas, bays are generally more contaminated and have more severely impacted sediment quality. The objective of this research area is to develop measurement tools and an assessment framework to evaluate the impacts of sediment contaminants on benthic aquatic life within bays.

Tool development efforts focus on refining and calibrating methods to evaluate the three major elements (lines of evidence) of sediment quality assessment: toxicity, chemical contamination, and benthic community assessment. A database of matched toxicity, chemistry, and benthic community analyses for sediment samples was created and used for tool development. Then, an integration procedure was used to consolidate data from each line of evidence and allow sediment samples to be classified into one of five categories:

• Unimpacted
• Likely Unimpacted
• Possibly Impacted
• Likely Impacted
• Clearly Impacted
 

Research Projects

• Development of Chemical Indicators
• Development of Benthic Indicators
• Development of Toxicity Indicators
• Integrating Multiple Lines of Evidence

Data and Tools

• SQO Database  (sediment chemistry, toxicity, and benthic invertebrate measurements)
• User Guide for SQO database
• Complete list of SQO tools