Integrating Environmental Water Research Across Multi Scales and Disciplines
Water is our most precious natural resource. All human activities, from agriculture and industrial processes to domestic uses, depend on water of sufficient quantity and quality. This is also true for natural ecosystems. In contrast to highly visible water quantity stressors, such as flash floods and prolonged droughts, changes in water quality are often more gradual and more difficult to detect, and their cumulative impacts more difficult to predict and manage. Water quality deterioration, however, poses more pervasive and chronic risks to the economy, human health and the ecological life-support systems of the planet.
Water quality degradation is a global phenomenon. In Canada, for example, harmful and nuisance algal blooms are a persistent problem for many freshwater bodies, including the iconic Laurentian Great Lakes, while many of our First Nations communities still live under drinking water advisories. Globally, awareness is also growing that climate change adaptation must be an integral part of planning and implementing effective water management policies and practices.
For general inquires about the Ecohydrology Research Group, please email ecohydrology@uwaterloo.ca.
News
University of Waterloo team attends fourth session UN plastics treaty negotiations
Members of a University of Waterloo delegation, including Stephanie Slowinski, Research Biogeochemist in ERG, attended the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-4) in Ottawa from April 23 to 29.
New paper investigates the biogeochemical cycling of phosphorus in an urban stormwater pond
In a new paper published in Environmental Science: Advances, a team of ERG researchers unravels the biogeochemical processes responsible for the efficient removal of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in a stormwater management pond in the Greater Toronto Area.
New paper compares semi-empirical methods for retrieving satellite-derived chlorophyll concentrations in Lake Ontario
A new paper published in the journal Remote Sensing presents a thorough comparison of the performance of semi-empirical methods aimed at retrieving spatial and temporal distributions of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations in both the nearshore and offshore waters of the western part of Lake Ontario.