Oxygen measurement using a needle-type microsensor

Impacts on benthic communities from organic enrichment result from a combination of sulfide (S) toxicity and dissolved oxygen (DO) depletion. DO measurement methods available a decade ago suffered from numerous technical and practical issues. New methodologies for rapidly and directly measuring DO at low cost and effort, and under field conditions, are currently available. Sediment organic enrichment classifications based on DO have already been suggested to support similar S and redox potential (Eh) classifications (Hargrave et al., 2008b). Both S and Eh measurement methods have issues and are at times problematic. Consequently, DO measurements may provide a potential additional or alternative impact indicator to S for aquaculture monitoring purposes to support decisions based on S classifications.