Xenobiotic Organic Compound Cycling In Coastal Waters
Abstract
Our long-term goal is to develop the basis for predicting the fates of xenobiotic organic chemicals in harbors and coastal marine environments. To this end, we seek to build a flexible modeling approach that is capable of yielding estimates of chemical concentrations in space and time, and which is tunable for various compounds and coastal environments of interest. Such predictions are necessary to allow us to manage wisely our coastal discharges and to evaluate the need to clean up existing conditions. In order to assess xenobiotic organic chemicals which are hydrophobic (HOCs) in coastal marine environments, we must be able to (1) characterize each chemical's speciation, and (2) evaluate the rates of processes affecting particles in coastal seawater. The first objective requires us to examine the distribution of contaminants like PCBs and PAHs among dissolved, colloidal, and settling-particle phases. Moreover, we seek to find properties of the sorbates, sorbents, and solutions from which these "phase" distributions can be estimated a priori. The second objective requires us to assess quantitatively the fluxes of solids from the water column to the sediment beds below.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA569029
Entities
People
- Ken O. Buesseler
- Philip M. Gschwend
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology