Description:    The condition of many wetlands across Australia has deteriorated due to increased water regulation and the expansion and intensification of agriculture and increased urban and industrial expansion. Despite this situation, a comprehensive overview of the distribution and condition of wetlands across Australia is not available. Regional analyses exist and several exemplary mapping and monitoring exercises have been maintained to complement the more general information sets. It is expected that global climate change will exacerbate the pressures on inland wetlands, while sea level rises will adversely affect coastal wetlands. It is also expected that the exacerbation of these pressures will increase the potential for near-irreversible changes in the ecological state of some wetlands. Concerted institutional responses to such pressures have in the past proven difficult to sustain, although there is some evidence that a more balanced approach to water use and agriculture is being developed with the provision of increasing funds to purchase water for environmental flows being one example. We identify examples from around Australia that illustrate the impacts on wetlands of long-term climate change from palaeoecological records (south-eastern Australia); water allocation (Murray-Darling Basin); dryland salinisation (south-western Australia); and coastal salinisation (northern Australia). These are provided to illustrate both the extent of change in wetlands and the complexity of differentiating the specific effects of climate change. An appraisal of the main policy responses by government to climate change is provided as a basis for further considering the opportunities for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Content Type Journal Article Category Effects of Climate Change on Wetlands Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s00027-011-0232-5 Authors C. M. Finlayson, Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, PO Box 789, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia J. A. Davis, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia P. A. Gell, Centre for Environmental Management, School of Science and Engineering, University of Ballarat, PO Box 663, Ballarat, VIC 3353, Australia R. T. Kingsford, Australian Rivers and Wetland Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia K. A. Parton, Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, PO Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia Journal Aquatic Sciences - Research Across Boundaries Online ISSN 1420-9055 Print ISSN 1015-1621

Description:    Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from grazed grasslands are estimated to be approximately 28% of global anthropogenic N 2 O emissions. Estimating the N 2 O flux from grassland soils is difficult because of its episodic nature. This study aimed to quantify the N 2 O emissions, the annual N 2 O flux and the emission factor (EF), and also to investigate the influence of environmental and soil variables controlling N 2 O emissions from grazed grassland. Nitrous oxide emissions were measured using static chambers at eight different grasslands in the South of Ireland from September 2007 to August 2009. The instantaneous N 2 O flux values ranged from -186 to 885.6 μg N 2 O-N m −2  h −1 and the annual sum ranged from 2 ± 3.51 to 12.55 ± 2.83 kg N 2 O-N ha −1  y −1 for managed sites. The emission factor ranged from 1.3 to 3.4%. The overall EF of 1.81% is about 69% higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) default EF value of 1.25% which is currently used by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to estimate N 2 O emission in Ireland. At an N applied of approximately 300 kg ha −1  y −1 , the N 2 O emissions are approximately 5.0 kg N 2 O-N ha −1 y −1 , whereas the N 2 O emissions double to approximately 10 kg N ha −1 for an N applied of 400 kg N ha −1  y −1 . The sites with higher fluxes were associated with intensive N-input and frequent cattle grazing. The N 2 O flux at 17°C was five times greater than that at 5°C. Similarly, the N 2 O emissions increased with increasing water filled pore space (WFPS) with maximum N 2 O emissions occurring at 60–80% WFPS. We conclude that N application below 300 kg ha −1  y −1 and restricted grazing on seasonally wet soils will reduce N 2 O emissions. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10021-011-9434-x Authors Rashad Rafique, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Hydrology, Micrometeorology and Climate Change, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Deirdre Hennessy, Department of Animals &, Grassland Science Research, Teagasc-Moorpark, Fermoy, Ireland Gerard Kiely, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Hydrology, Micrometeorology and Climate Change, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Journal Ecosystems Online ISSN 1435-0629 Print ISSN 1432-9840

Description:    This review reports background information on wetlands in the Northeast Asia and High Asia areas, including wetland coverage and type, significance for local populations, and threats to their vitality and protection, with particular focus on the relationship of how global change influenced wetlands. Natural wetlands in these areas have been greatly depleted and degraded, largely due to global climate change, drainage and conversion to agriculture and silviculture, hydrologic alterations, exotics invasions, and misguided management policies. Global warming has caused wetland and ice-sheet loss in High Asia and permafrost thawing in tundra wetlands in Northeast Asia, and hence induced enormous reductions in water-storage sources in High Asia and carbon loss in Northeast Asia. This, in the long term, will exacerbate chronic water shortage and positively feed back global warming. Recently, better understanding of the vital role of healthy wetland ecosystems to Asia’s sustainable economic development has led to major efforts in wetland conservation and restoration. Nonetheless, collaborative efforts to restore and protect the wetlands must involve not only the countries of Northeast and High Asia but also international agencies. Research has been productive but the results should be more effectively integrated with policy-making and wetland restoration practices under future climatic scenarios. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-9 DOI 10.1007/s00027-012-0281-4 Authors Shuqing An, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Ziqiang Tian, River and Coastal Environment Research Center, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012 People’s Republic of China Ying Cai, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Teng Wen, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Delin Xu, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Hao Jiang, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Zhigang Yao, The Wetland Management Station, Jiangsu Administrate of Forestry, Nanjing, 210036 People’s Republic of China Baohua Guan, The Institute of Geography and Limnology, China Academy of Science, Nanjing, 210008 People’s Republic of China Sheng Sheng, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Yan Ouyang, The State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, The Institute of Wetland Ecology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093 People’s Republic of China Xiaoli Cheng, Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074 People’s Republic of China Journal Aquatic Sciences - Research Across Boundaries Online ISSN 1420-9055 Print ISSN 1015-1621

Description:    Agricultural drainage is thought to alter greenhouse gas emissions from temperate peatlands, with CH 4 emissions reduced in favor of greater CO 2 losses. Attention has largely focussed on C trace gases, and less is known about the impacts of agricultural conversion on N 2 O or global warming potential. We report greenhouse gas fluxes (CH 4 , CO 2 , N 2 O) from a drained peatland in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California, USA currently managed as a rangeland (that is, pasture). This ecosystem was a net source of CH 4 (25.8 ± 1.4 mg CH 4 -C m −2  d −1 ) and N 2 O (6.4 ± 0.4 mg N 2 O-N m −2  d −1 ). Methane fluxes were comparable to those of other managed temperate peatlands, whereas N 2 O fluxes were very high; equivalent to fluxes from heavily fertilized agroecosystems and tropical forests. Ecosystem scale CH 4 fluxes were driven by “hotspots” (drainage ditches) that accounted for less than 5% of the land area but more than 84% of emissions. Methane fluxes were unresponsive to seasonal fluctuations in climate and showed minimal temporal variability. Nitrous oxide fluxes were more homogeneously distributed throughout the landscape and responded to fluctuations in environmental variables, especially soil moisture. Elevated CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes contributed to a high overall ecosystem global warming potential (531 g CO 2 -C equivalents m −2  y −1 ), with non-CO 2 trace gas fluxes offsetting the atmospheric “cooling” effects of photoassimilation. These data suggest that managed Delta peatlands are potentially large regional sources of greenhouse gases, with spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture modulating the relative importance of each gas for ecosystem global warming potential. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-15 DOI 10.1007/s10021-011-9411-4 Authors Yit Arn Teh, Environmental Change Research Group, School of Geography & Geosciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9 AL Scotland, UK Whendee L. Silver, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Oliver Sonnentag, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Matteo Detto, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Maggi Kelly, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Dennis D. Baldocchi, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Journal Ecosystems Online ISSN 1435-0629 Print ISSN 1432-9840