Subsequent to the 2009 floods, several mines in northwest Queensland were charged for environmental offences including the LACM. The mine company was eventually fined $0.5 (Australian) million Pifithrin-�� mw in March 2012 for causing serious environmental harm after its storage

ponds discharged waste water into the Saga and Inca creeks (Queensland Government, 2012a). Numerous studies are available on soil-and sediment-associated metals and metalloids (hereafter referred to as ‘metals’) within urban and industrial centres in Australia (e.g. Birch et al., 1997, Birch and Taylor, 1999, Birch and Vanderhayden, 2011, Chattopadhyay et al., 2003, Ford and Dale, 1996, Laidlaw and Taylor, 2011, Laidlaw et al., 2014, Markus and McBratney, 1996, Martley et al.,

2004 and Rouillon et al., 2013). By contrast, however, research into the environmental effects of mining on remote rangeland agricultural catchments, is notably absent. This lack of research is surprising given that the minerals sector is a major industry in Australia, contributing Selleckchem TSA HDAC approximately 8% to the nation’s annual gross domestic product (Roarty, 2010). Although interest in northwest Queensland environments is increasing (e.g. Mackay and Taylor, 2013, Mackay et al., 2011, Taylor and Hudson-Edwards, 2008 and Taylor et al., 2009), much of the earlier work focused largely on ecology studies (e.g. Hoffman et al., 2000, Hoffman et al., 2002, Hortle and Person, 1990 and Pyatt and Pyatt, 2004). On the whole, the impact of mining on channel and floodplain environments on the region has received little attention in peer-reviewed literature. In general, an extensive research literature examines heavy metal transport and storage in temperate environments whereas a comparatively smaller body of work addresses effects in arid and semi-arid systems, even though such effects

may be equally widespread (Taylor and Hudson-Edwards, 2008). Significant limitations exist, however, in applying models across regions or hydroclimatic environments, because of the heterogeneity of responses between river systems (see Miller, 1997 for a review of these issues) or even within an individual system clonidine (Marcus et al., 2001). River networks are pivotal for the transport, dispersal and storage of contaminants, with up to 90% of the total metal load in a catchment transported (and stored) by river-related processes (e.g. Macklin et al., 2006, Marcus, 1987, Miller, 1997, Taylor, 2007 and Walling and Owens, 2003). Contaminants may be transported in solution or combined with mineral grains. They could also mobilise as grain surface coatings or adsorbe to grain surfaces (Miller and Orbock Miller, 2007). The physical and chemical availability of contaminants to the system can have measureable impacts on sediment quality, which in turn may increase potential exposure risk factors for human activity associated with channels and floodplains (cf.