CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The water-sediment interface plays a prevailing role in the determination of the trophic degree of a waterbody. Numerous Redox reactions take place there, originating the release of contaminants from the sediments to the water column. The aim of the present work was to develop equipment for the collecting samples from the water-sediment interface. Such equipment had a simple design, low construction cost, no depth limitations, high levels of personal safety and trustworthy in the collection of samples. Its performance was compared to the samples obtained by autonomous diving with a syringe and with a corer. The Hydrostatic sampler permits to work at depths where the costs of the traditional diving methodology are expensive, and where working conditions are dangerous for the diver. The water-sediment interface samples collected by this Hydrostatic sampler are an additional tool together with pore water samples to understand the chemical mechanisms that control the P release from sediment to the water column.