Identification

Title

Habitat point records from 1993 WWA River Usk industrial discharge pipe littoral survey

Abstract

The only major industrial outfall in the Usk Estuary is from the British Steel Company Orb Works which discharges effulent including a variety of metals, oils and neutralised pickling liquor. Previous studies have indicated that bioaccumulation of some metals by the alga Fucus vesiculosus may be attributable to this effulent and so a study of the benthic fauna was undertaken at 14 sites within a distance of 1.3 Km during July 1984 to assess the biological effects of the effulent. In addition bioaccumulation of metals by the polycheate Nereis diversicolor was also investigated. Seventeen macroinvertebrate taxa were collected (range 3-11 per site), the most widespread species being Nereis diversicolor and Macoma balthica, although the former species occured at relatively low densities within 200 metres of the discharge possibly indicating a deleterious effect as a result of the effulent. Copper concentrations in tissues of Nereis diversicolor were higher than in the sediments and were related with distance from the outfall, although tissue and sediment concentrations were generally similar to other estuaries such as the Humber. It was concluded that the effulent does have a detrimental effect on the fauna locally, although specific toxic substances were not identified. It is reccommended that proposed benthic studies in estuaries are supplemented by more widespread bioaccumulation studies, screening of effulent toxicity (for example Microtox system) and measurement of simple growth parameters of transplanted fauna.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

http://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/9f9b2e65-2a73-4316-88f6-c04b4252d0ac-1993-WWA-River-Usk-industrial-discharge-pipe-littoral-survey.csv

name: 1993-WWA-River-Usk-industrial-discharge-pipe-littoral-survey.csv

Unique resource identifier

code

9f9b2e65-2a73-4316-88f6-c04b4252d0ac

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Additional information source

Davies, Wade (1985) Studies of the intertidal benthic fauna of the Usk estuary in relation to BSC ORB Works No. 1 outfall Freestone, Jones, North, Pethick, Symes, Ward (1987) The Humber estuary. Environmental background

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

oceans

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Marine

Marine Recorder

JNCCMNCR10000493

Habitat

MNCR

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-2.996737007

East bounding longitude

-2.968272062

North bounding latitude

51.57786536

South bounding latitude

51.55964361

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1984-06-11

End position

1984-06-12

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2001-08-29

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

This survey was extracted from a Marine Recorder snapshot.

Conformity

Data format

name of format

Comma Separated Values

version of format

Unknown

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Open Government Licence v3.0

Limitations on public access

no limitations

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2018-05-17

Metadata language

eng