ROCCH, the French Chemical Contaminant Monitoring Network, regularly provides data for assessing the chemical quality of French coastal waters. Concentrations of trace metals and organic compounds are measured in integrative matrices (bivalves and sediments).

Surface sediment samples are collected from 200 to 250 monitoring stations in the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean lagoons every six years. Results concerning approximately 140 historical and emerging chemical substances (metals, PAHs, PCBs, PBDEs, PFAS …) are submitted to international databases of the Regional Sea Convention (OSPAR for the North East Atlantic and the Barcelona Convention for the Mediterranean) and disseminated to public stakeholders.

During the ROCCHSED campaign in spring 2022, three sediment cores, each forty to fifty centimetres long, were collected from three different sites in the Bay of Biscay. Horizons of one to two centimetres in length were dated, sieved and freeze-dried for chemical analysis. The concentrations of metals, PAHs and PCBs were determined in horizons aged from over 150 years to the present in order to define the reference concentration of natural levels and describe the temporal profile of contamination.