Peatlands are major sources of organic carbon, nutrients, and mercury in northern watersheds. Climate change and human land use may alter the production and downstream mobilization of solutes, affecting aquatic functions and ecosystem services. Here we provide an overview of several projects that have studied impacts of permafrost thaw, wildfire, and drainage on peatlands in boreal western Canada. Permafrost thaw increased the potential for microbial production of methylmercury, with greater potential in fens than bogs due to differences in water chemistry and availability of labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Streams draining peatland-rich catchments south of the permafrost boundary accordingly had higher concentrations of both DOC and methylmercury than stream in the discontinuous permafrost zone. Beaver ponds however acted as sinks for methylmercury across permafrost zones. Development of thermokarst bogs further led to high competition for inorganic nitrogen and increased uptake of atmospheric nitrous oxide. Wildfire had only minor influences on DOC and inorganic nitrogen but caused increased release of phosphate � regardless of permafrost conditions. Conversely, peatland drainage did not affect phosphate but increased mobilization of DOC and ammonium. Organic nutrients mobilized from peatlands were however largely not bioavailable, and neither increased ammonium (drainage) or phosphate (wildfire) alleviated stoichiometric limitations to microbial uptake of organic nutrients. Overall, our studies show that impacts of climate change and land use on production and mobilization of solutes from peatlands are linked to both peatland soil environmental conditions and hydrological connectivity.