Impacts of climate change, climate variability and management on soil and water quality in wetlands of South Australia

Wetland systems worldwide have been influenced by anthropic change, such that finding a natural baseline is rare. The consequences for ecosystem biodiversity and resilience at landscape scale have been enormous. The compounding effects of climate change and variability, knowledge gaps in landscape connectivity and feedbacks make the task of managing wetlands as part of a larger landscape difficult. This paper presents a summary of the impacts of natural and anthropic factors on contaminant mobilisation in sulfidic wetland systems of Australia. It highlights the role of water-soil/sediment interactions, acid-neutralizing and buffering mechanisms, and the irreversibility of some changes during the drying and wetting of sub-aqueous wetland soils. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.