ABSTRACT

The impact of disturbance by the dredge head during marine aggregate dredging has been reviewed on pp. 140-43. The effects of sediment deposition and spoils disposal outside the immediate boundaries of dredged areas in coastal waters has also been widely studied and includes extensive physiological-ecological work on a wide variety of animals including plankton, benthic invertebrates and fish species (for reviews, see Sherk 1971, Moore 1977). Early studies by Loosanoff (1962) showed that different species of commercially significant filter-feeding molluscs were differently affected by suspended sediment. Subsequent studies by Sherk (1971) and Sherk et al. (1974) included both plankton and fish species. They showed that, as in the case of bivalves, fish species have varying tolerances of suspended solids, filter-feeding species being more sensitive than deposit feeders and larval forms being more sensitive than adults (see also Matsumoto 1984).