Tailings containing mining and ore treatment waste, accumulated over long time periods are major contaminant sources at the watershed scale and may seriously impair environmental quality of river-sea continuums. A critical review of existing work in different disciplines addressing the multi-metal contamination of the Gironde Watershed, a major fluvial-estuarine model system representative of many other systems worldwide, has provided a condensed, yet pertinent overview on various aspects of this environmental problem. Combining long-term observation and contamination records from different environmental archives, there is a clear trend towards resilience for the main historical contaminants (Cd, Zn, Pb and Cu), yet suggesting that resilience needs appropriate management of both, tailings as the initial source and contaminated sediments acting as temporary metal traps which may transform into delayed sources. Contaminated sediment management is an increasingly important challenge due to (i) successful remediation at the contamination source itself (ii) global-change induced factors and strategies and (iii) lacking coordination of actions between upstream and downstream parts of the fluvial-estuarine continuum. Less studied and emerging metallic contaminants show recent trends in sediments and biota that are decoupled from the legacy contaminant trajectories due to recent sources and applications, suggesting that further work is needed to assess their potential impact on the environmental quality of the Gironde fluvial-estuarine system and that of other systems, especially in a context of worldwide rapidly growing mining activity and metal use.

长期积累的含采矿和选矿废物的尾矿是流域尺度的主要污染物来源，可能严重损害河海连续体的环境质量。对解决吉伦特流域多金属污染的不同学科的现有工作进行了批判性审查，该流域是代表全球许多其他系统的主要河流-河口模型系统，提供了对该环境问题各个方面的浓缩但相关的概述。结合来自不同环境档案的长期观察和污染记录，主要历史污染物（Cd、Zn、Pb 和 Cu）具有明显的恢复力趋势，但表明恢复力需要对两者进行适当管理，尾矿作为初始源，受污染的沉积物作为临时金属捕集器，可能转化为延迟源。由于 (i) 污染源本身的成功修复 (ii) 全球变化诱发的因素和策略以及 (iii) 河流 - 河口连续体的上游和下游部分之间缺乏协调行动，受污染的沉积物管理是一个越来越重要的挑战。研究较少和新出现的金属污染物显示了沉积物和生物群的最新趋势，由于最近的来源和应用，这些趋势与遗留污染物轨迹脱钩，这表明需要进一步的工作来评估它们对吉​​伦特河河口系统环境质量的潜在影响和其他系统的，