News

A reporter with the Weather Network visited UW on Tuesday to interview Philippe about the ubiquity of debris in the world's oceans, which has been brought to light recently with difficulty in locating the Malaysian Airlines flight 370. Philippe highlighted the problem of widespread debris and explained the nature of ocean currents pushing debris to all parts of the oceans.

Read more: www.theweathernetwork.com/insider-insights/articles/how-much-garbage-is-actually-in-our-oceans/24452/

From March 24 to 26, Philippe was a guest at the Grand Water Research Institute GWRI) of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel (http://gwri.technion.ac.il). GWRI is Israel’s leading institute of water research. Philippe’s visit centered on exploring potential areas of collaboration between GWRI and the Water Institute of the University of Waterloo. In addition to discussions with GWRI faculty, Philippe gave a seminar and visited some of the research facilities. 

Philippe Van Cappellen was a member of the committee reviewing the Environmental and Biological Systems Science and the Climate and Carbon Sciences programs within the Earth Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, California. The review took place on March 18 and 19. 

A new publication, Modelling phosphorus loading and algal blooms in a nordic, by Raoul-Marie Couture and co-authors is in press. The study presents a network of process-based mass-balance models for phosphorus dynamics in catchments and lakes provides a new approach to simulate the effect of land-use and climate change on water quality. The results suggest that good land use practices can offset the detrimental effects of climate change on water quality.

Philippe Van Cappellen and PhD student Severin Stojanovic visited the China Three Gorges University (CTGU) in Yichang, Hubei Province to initiate a collaborative research project on developing a predictive model for algal blooms in tributaries of the Three Gorges Reservoir. The collaboration involves researchers from the Ecohydrology Research Group at the University of Waterloo (UW) and from the Environmental Hydraulics group at CTGU. Severin remained in Yichang for the entire week of February 17, while Philippe left for Beijing on February 19.

World Wetlands Day symposium at University of Waterloo featured on Radio Canada International (RCI). To read the article and listen to the interview of Philippe Van Cappellen, go to

http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2014/02/04/20569understanding-the-importance-of-wetlands/