As you can see from above, iron is definitely all over the place at the wetland I'm studying! The pictures down the side are sort of the layout of where water comes from into the system 
(although some water also comes in/out through groundwater, but we're hoping we can account for that fairly easily with a couple wells to measure flow rates). Groundwater comes from the west (the direction of the highway), and stormwater from the highway/walkway collect in a channel that was constructed, which drains into the main wetland basin. As you can see there's not much water in the basin right now, but it should jump up soon when rain starts - that water colour is probably because the water's been sitting, but it's also because of the iron. One of the biggest problems I'm finding with this type of contamination is that it's pretty much all from natural sources, so it's not like you can just stop someone from polluting - it's either stop the soils from releasing acid/sulfate/iron and cause absolutely no construction/building, or
there has to be a way to manage the problem (and I think it's safe to say that the development of the area isn't going to stop anytime soon). From the basin water flows through a channel of pretty dense vegetation, and then out to Lake Gwelup. I'm guessing that this channel will do a lot to help the water quality, because plants can take up contaminants, and they can change properties in the soil that cause the contaminants to either change form and be less toxic, or become immobile and sort of become solids that can be easily collected. The basin could do a lot as well though, because it has a lot of sediments. So who knows what we'll find? 
For now, the main question is figuring out how well the water is treated, and then I'll move on to try to figure out what part of the system plays the biggest role in removing contaminants, and also look at whether stormwater entering during big rainfalls causes any problems within the system or makes it less effective or whatever. That's pretty much my first year. I'll also probably look at whether any additional things can be done to the system to make it better, but that will probably be the second quarter of next year. The last half of next year is basically writing. I'm somewhat relieved to find out that I don't actually have to do all the chemical analyses on the water - I'm going to learn what I would do, and why that works / why you do it, but a chemical lab is going to actually do the analyzing (which is good, because I think by the end I'll have about 32,000 individual pieces of data haha). Yes, part of my proposal also accounts for how I'll manage to keep track of it all!
(although some water also comes in/out through groundwater, but we're hoping we can account for that fairly easily with a couple wells to measure flow rates). Groundwater comes from the west (the direction of the highway), and stormwater from the highway/walkway collect in a channel that was constructed, which drains into the main wetland basin. As you can see there's not much water in the basin right now, but it should jump up soon when rain starts - that water colour is probably because the water's been sitting, but it's also because of the iron. One of the biggest problems I'm finding with this type of contamination is that it's pretty much all from natural sources, so it's not like you can just stop someone from polluting - it's either stop the soils from releasing acid/sulfate/iron and cause absolutely no construction/building, or
there has to be a way to manage the problem (and I think it's safe to say that the development of the area isn't going to stop anytime soon). From the basin water flows through a channel of pretty dense vegetation, and then out to Lake Gwelup. I'm guessing that this channel will do a lot to help the water quality, because plants can take up contaminants, and they can change properties in the soil that cause the contaminants to either change form and be less toxic, or become immobile and sort of become solids that can be easily collected. The basin could do a lot as well though, because it has a lot of sediments. So who knows what we'll find? 
For now, the main question is figuring out how well the water is treated, and then I'll move on to try to figure out what part of the system plays the biggest role in removing contaminants, and also look at whether stormwater entering during big rainfalls causes any problems within the system or makes it less effective or whatever. That's pretty much my first year. I'll also probably look at whether any additional things can be done to the system to make it better, but that will probably be the second quarter of next year. The last half of next year is basically writing. I'm somewhat relieved to find out that I don't actually have to do all the chemical analyses on the water - I'm going to learn what I would do, and why that works / why you do it, but a chemical lab is going to actually do the analyzing (which is good, because I think by the end I'll have about 32,000 individual pieces of data haha). Yes, part of my proposal also accounts for how I'll manage to keep track of it all!
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