1 Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands. APPROACHES AND FRAMEWORKS FOR MANAGING CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS - A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE SABINE E. APITZ* SEA Environmental Decisions, Ltd., Little Hadham, United Kingdom. JOS BRILS Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research - TNO, The Netherlands ANTONIO MARCOMINI, ANDREA CRITTO, PAOLA AGOSTINI AND CHRISTIAN MICHELETTI Ca’ Foscari University,Venice, Italy ROBERTO PIPPA, PETRA SCANFERLA AND STEFANO ZUIN Consorzio Venezia Ricerche, Venice,Italy TOMÁŠ LÁNCZOS Comenius University, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Dept. Geochemistry, Bratislava KATARÍNA DERCOVÁ Department of Biochemical Technology, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovak Republic ANTON KOČAN, JÁN PETRÍK Department of Toxic Organic Pollutants, Institute of Preventive and Clinical Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic PAVEL HUCKO, PATRIK KUSNIR Water Research Institute Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovak Republic *To whom correspondence should be addressed: drsea@cvrl.org. Abstract- Sediment is an essential, integral and dynamic part of the hydrologic system. In natural and agricultural basins, sediment is derived from the weathering and erosion of minerals, organic material and soils in upstream areas and from the erosion of river banks and other in-stream sources. As surface-water flow rates decline in lowland areas, transported sediment settles