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This paper intends to provide the reader with an overview of the Special Issue (SI) on ABBaCo project, an extensive research project aimed to characterise the environmental quality and a possible remediation and restoration strategy of the marine area impacted by the Bagnoli industrial site. The main focus of this SI is to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the physical environment of the Bagnoli-Coroglio Bay (Gulf of Napoli, southern Tyrrhenian Sea) of the geophysical processes controlling the sediment dynamics and of the resulting pollutants distribution. Through eight contributions, an ensemble of interdisciplinary articles has been collected, emphasising the importance of tackling technical and scientific problems at different scales and from different points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis was selected as unique biomonitor species to implement a regional monitoring programme, the CIESM Mediterranean Mussel Watch (MMW), in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. As of today, and upon standardization of the methodological approach, the MMW Network has been able to quantify 137Cs levels in mussels from 60 coastal stations and to produce the first distribution map of this artificial radionuclide at the scale of the entire Mediterranean and Black Seas. While measured 137Cs levels were found to be very low (usually <1Bqkg−1 wet wt) 137Cs activity concentrations in the Black Sea and North Aegean Sea were up to two orders of magnitude higher than those in the western Mediterranean Basin. Such effects, far from representing a threat to human populations or the environment, reflect a persistent signature of the Chernobyl fallout in this area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Investigations on the concentration level of heavy metals in the sediments of Cienfuegos bay (Cuba) have been carried out, to reconstruct their "depositional history" by using radionuclide geochronology, to highlight the major changes occurred in the last century and to draw hypotheses on their origin. During two sampling campaigns (1999 and 2001) sediment cores and surface grab samples have been collected in the two basins of the bay. In this paper results on the horizontal and vertical distribution of arsenic, nickel and vanadium are discussed, along with data on concentrations of natural (excess 210Pb) and anthropogenic (137Cs) radionuclides, used as tools to "date" the sediment horizons. Results evidenced that important changes in the sedimentation regime of the bay occurred in the last forty years, in relation to changes in land uses and to the effects of some extreme meteorological events. The distribution of the heavy metals shows the influence of the recent industrialization of the area, as revealed by both the spatial and vertical concentration within the sediment horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]