Surface sediments and porewater from 12 sites within Xiamen offshore areas and organisms from a heavily contaminated site Yuandang Lagoon were sampled and analyzed for eight polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) congeners (-28, -47, -99, -100, -153, -154, -183 and -209). The total concentrations of eight PBDEs (Sigma 8PBDEs) and BDE-209 in sediments ranged from 0.27 to 76.54 ng/g with an average of 16.31 ng/g and from 0.10 to 70.11 ng/g with an average of 14.94 ng/g, respectively. Concentrations of Sigma 8PBDEs in porewater ranged from 2.5 to 34.1 ng/L, with a mean value of 15.3 ng/L. In this study, the partition coefficients (log K-oc) of PBDE congeners (without -209) were significantly correlated with their octanol-water partition coefficients (log K-OW) (r(2) = 0.74, P < 0.01). Sigma 8PBDE concentrations ranged from 0.33 to 1.26 ng/g (lipid weight) in marine organisms, and PBDE congener patterns were significantly different between fish and clam, crab. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.