Evaluation of effects associated with an oil platform, using the sediment quality triad

Abstract

The Sediment Quality Triad concept, which incorporates components of sediment chemistry, toxicity (= bioassay tests) and benthic community structure, was applied to the area immediately surrounding a commercial oil and gas production site in the Gulf of Mexico. The results of this study indicated that stations within a 25‐m radius of a central platform and at a remote platform had high levels of sediment chemical enrichment and high toxicity, as determined in laboratory sediment toxicity tests. Benthic community structure at those stations was different from that at more distant stations, where chemical enrichment and toxicity were low; the differences included some examples of greater taxa richness, total abundance and specific taxa abundance in the vicinity of the platforms. There was no evidence of depauperate fauna near the platforms, such as might be expected if significant adverse effects were manifest in situ. Although chemical enrichment from the platforms had the potential to cause adverse environmental effects within the immediate vicinity of source (the 25‐m stations in the present study), this potential was not manifest in the benthos, possibly due to offsetting factors that could have included the physical habitat provided by the platforms, grain‐size effects and adaptation.

Use of Benthic Invertebrate Community Structure and the Sediment Quality Triad to Evaluate Metal-Contaminated Sediment in the Upper Clark Fork River, Montana

“…Triad studies are usually descriptive; however, Chapman et al [52] reported procedures for using the Triad to develop numerical criteria. The Triad has been used in several ways: (a) t o identify and differentiate pollution-degraded areas in marine, estuarine, and freshwater sediments; (b) to determine concentrations of contaminants associated with effects; (c) to predict where degradation may occur based on chemistry and toxicity; and (d) to rank areas for possible remediation [52].…”

Analysis of macrobenthic communities in Flanders, Belgium, using a stepwise input variable selection procedure with artificial neural networks

“…Chapman et al 1991) (De Pauw and Vanhooren 1983) and is based on the taxonomic diversity of the benthic macroinvertebrate community and the presence or absence of specific Fig. 1 Overview of the distribution of the 360 sediment sampling sites in unnavigable watercourses throughout Flanders, Belgium Aquat Ecol (2007) 41:427-441 429 indicator taxa in the sediment sample.…”

Pollution status of North Sea sediments - an international integrative study

“…Similar gradients around drilling platforms occur in other parts of the world (e.g. the Gulf of Mexico; Chapman et al 1991b). The drilling site gradient only showed possible effects at the original source; previous studies (de Jong et al 1991 along this gradient have shown contamination, toxicity and benthos alteration (a Triad indicating pollution-induced degradation) extending in 1988 for 500 to 750 m from the center of drilling.…”