Ecological risk from organic contaminants in marine sediments - mobilisation and impact

The principal objective of the SIP is to improve the scientific basis for assessing the risk from sediment bound contaminants to ecosystem quality and viability and to human health. Sub-goals are: - Quantify the role of the sediments as a source of bioava ilable PCBs and PAHs and how this is affected by enhanced bioturbation and resuspension - Improve parameterisation of some of the models used for current risk assessment - Establish the sensitivity of sub-lethal endpoints in relation to behavioural endpo ints and mortality - Establish relationships between in vitro toxicity tests and whole-sediment tests - Simulate the disposition of contaminants in the food web - Predict the importance of remedial actions on contaminated sediments for the future contami nant concentrations in biota at different trophic levels - Evaluate the reliability of site/sediment-specific food web concentration predictions