More Information about Integrated Assessment of Sediment Quality:

    Overall sediment quality combines measures of sediment contaminant concentrations (ERM-Q) and sediment bioassay results as evidence of sediment toxicity. The scoring process used for the integrated sediment quality measure was very similar to that described for the integrated water quality score.

Summary of sediment quality threshold values and scoring process used to obtain the integrated sediment quality score. Values obtained from station RT99009 were used in this example. Green indicates good sediment quality measures, yellow indicates marginal values that may have some adverse effects on bottom dwelling organisms, and red indicates poor sediment quality measures with a high probability of adverse bioeffects. For the purposes of the SCECAP program, an integrated score < 4.0 represents marginal overall sediment quality, and a score < 2.0 represent poor sediment quality.