Past assessments of ecosystem health have often neglected the overall functioning of a system by focusing only on structural components (e.g. species identity and abundance). Assessing ecological function, such as decomposition, provides a more accurate indication of the health of the entire water body than species composition alone. However, there are few rapid monitoring tools for assessing ecosystem function, despite their utility for natural resource managers. This research aimed to identify plausible rapid methods to quickly and efficiently monitor decomposition in wetlands and to test their consistency in two temperate regions. The initial research correlated water quality and sediment variables with four widely-established but resource-intensive measures of assessing decomposition over a 35-day period to identify potential rapid methods to monitor the ecological function of a wetland. Across six wetlands, we found positive correlations between the various rates of decomposition and water pH, electrical conductivity, total nitrogen concentrations and the proportion of sediment fines, and negative correlations with sediment pH, suggesting that these variables were potential indicators of decomposition rates. Microbial functional diversity was a general exception, tending to show opposite correlations with water quality and sediment variables compared with the wood, leaf litter and macroinvertebrate measures. The potential indicators were then tested for consistency in a second temperate region where they broadly consistent with the first region. The consistency in identified indicators suggests that these are likely to be useful rapid indicators of decomposition in wetlands. Thus, these rapid indicators will allow managers to quickly assess ecological health of wetlands and can be incorporated into a holistic functional assessment of wetland ecosystems.