“…This is becoming of increasing concern in many catchment areas in Europe because sediment contamination often results in a failure to meet the water quality criteria developed by the European Water Framework Directive (Hollert et al, 2007). Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated dibenzo-pdioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, Koh et al, 2004), halogenated hydrocarbons (HAHs, Villeneuve et al, 2001), as well as polycyclic and heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Hinger et al, 2011;Villeneuve et al, 2000) are of particular concern in this context because these compounds are found at elevated concentrations in the sediments of virtually every fluvial system with industrial background throughout Europe. Many POPs, particularly those with dioxin-like properties, can bioaccumulate, show great persistence under certain environmental conditions, and are toxic to organisms (Birnbaum and DeVito, 1995).…”