Practical guidelines for the analysis of seawater

Practical guidelines for the analysis of seawater

Edited by Oliver Wurl

Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009, 401 pp., ISBN 978-1420073065. US$ 149.95 (hardback)

The title promises guidelines for the analysis of seawater. The book begins with a chapter on sampling, sampling strategy, filtration and preservation. There then follow 15 chapters on the analysis of different constituents – DOC and POC, carbohydrates, amino acids, CDOM, isotopes in organic matter, gel particles, nutrients, organic bound nitrogen and phosphorous, plant pigments, sulphur containing compounds, iron, radionuclides, trace metals, persistent organic pollutants and pharmaceutical compounds.

My first thought was: who might benefit from having this handbook on their bookshelf? The selection of analysis treated is somewhat odd. Important and general subjects like oxygen, DIC-CO₂, pH, alkalinity and salinity are missing, whereas other more specialized analyses are included. Several new techniques, such as the use of optodes for measuring oxygen and pH, are not even mentioned. Thus, the book does not offer a comprehensive collection of guidelines. Maybe that is too much to ask for nowadays with the increasing number of techniques (see, e.g. Grasshoff et al. 1999). However, a thematic selection of subjects, e.g. with focus on either contaminants or nutrients, pigments and organic matter, would maybe have been a better choice.

If you choose to buy the book, you will get a collection of chapters each starting with an overview introducing the subject and the basic principles for the analysis, then an introduction to sampling and preservation, before we get to the analysis. Unfortunately, several issues are repeated in each chapter, e.g. the advantages of using Go-Flo bottles as they can be kept closed when passing the surface and several aspects about preservation. The editor would have saved space and time if that information was moved to chapter one, which actually deals with these subjects. In some cases there are even contradictions between recommendations in chapter one and later in the book, which leaves the reader confused.

The quality of the core information – the guidelines for analysis – is variable. Some chapters provide a detailed and comprehensive description, e.g. nutrient analysis with segmented flow analysis, where others do not get beyond an endless list of all the difficulties to be dealt with and precautions needed to obtain reliable results. It is true that chemical analysis of seawater can require the utmost care to get useful results. However, I also believe that any sampling programme requires some compromise between meticulous protocols, attention to details, number of replicates, etc., and time and budget constraints. An optimal sampling strategy is not the one with most replicates and painstaking care and cleanness, but the one where you optimise your resources (time, money, ship time for sampling) to get just enough precision to answer the question you are asking. This is where practical guidelines are important, helping the scientist, who is not an expert on this particular analysis, to find a practical way through the jungle of problems and pitfalls there will work under most standard conditions. Together with a list of the major pitfalls and some good references which you can consult if you need higher precision or work under special conditions, the guidelines can be very valuable. Unfortunately, only some of the chapters offer this help to the reader.

The book, however, does provide useful help and guidelines for some analyses, so if you find that several of your favourite analyses are covered, you might consider buying it for your library.

Stiig Markager

Senior Scientist and Adjunct Professor

National Environmental Research Institute

University of Aarhus, Denmark

Email: [email protected]