Limited guidelines are available to assess wetlands ecological and hydrological viability.
Research is needed to understand the issues of wetlands and aquatic ecosystems.
The central problem to be addressed in this project is whether DOM in wetlands can bind pollutants, such as pyrene and carbofuran, and then release the pollutants under certain conditions when the DOM flows into aquatic ecosystems. Many factors determine the fate and transport of pollutants in the environment but water solubility is certainly one of the most important physical properties of a pollutant molecule. Among the environmental factors that alter the solubility of a pollutant molecule is the presence of dissolved organic matter. Typically, DOM ranges in size from partially decayed fragments of plant material to particulate matter, colloids, and simple water-soluble molecules. These two fractions will be the focus here and DOC will be used to refer to both sources of organic matter.