Quality of dredged material in the River Seine basin (France). I. Physico-chemical properties

Sonia Carpentier (1) , Régis Moilleron (1) , C Beltran (2) , Daniel Herve (3) , Daniel R. Thevenot (1)

1 CEREVE - Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche Eau Ville Environnement
2 Service Hydraulique
3 SNS - Service de Navigation de la Seine

In rivers, sediments are frequently accumulating persistent chemicals, especially for those that are more contaminated as a consequence of pressure related to environmental pollution and human activity. The Seine river basin (France) is heavily polluted from nearby industrial activities, and the urban expansion of Paris and its suburbs within the Ile de France region and the sediments present in the Seine river basin are contaminated. To ensure safe, navigable waters, rivers and waterways must be dredged. In this paper, the quality of the sediment dredged in 1996, 1999 and 2000 is discussed. Physico-chemical characteristics of the sediment itself and of the pore-water are presented. Seine basin sediments show very diverse compositions depending on the sampling site. Nevertheless, a geographic distribution study illustrated that the Paris impact is far from being the only explanation to this diversity, the quality of this sediment is also of great concern. The sediment once dredged is transported via barges to a wet disposal site, where the dredged material is mixed with Seine water in order to be pumped into the receiving site. This sort of dumping might be responsible for the potential release of contaminants to the overlying water from the significantly contaminated sediments.

Keywords: Dredged material; Sediment quality; Pore-water; River Seine basin

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Sonia Carpentier, Régis Moilleron, C Beltran, Daniel Herve, Daniel R. Thevenot. Quality of dredged material in the River Seine basin (France). I. Physico-chemical properties. Science of the Total Environment, 2002, 295, pp.101 - 113. ⟨10.1016/S0048-9697(02)00055-4⟩. ⟨hal-01087457⟩