Pressure - Toxicants

Sources of toxicants to wetlands:

• Pesticide and heavy metal toxicants enter wetlands from diffuse catchment (via over-land surface flow (local watershed), in flood waters (overbank flow)) or directly from urban, mining and agricultural land use or point sources
• Oil toxicants generally enter wetlands from cars, roads, parking lots and washdown facilities (urban sources) or boat engines
• Toxicant spills are rare but can dump large amounts of toxic material at a time into a wetland
• Toxicants can enter wetlands via direct application of insecticides (e.g. mosquito control) or herbicides (e.g. aquatic weed control)