News

Philippe Van Cappellen, professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Ecohydrology, has been appointed a  University Professor  by the University of Waterloo. This designation recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence. Van Cappellen is the first Earth and Environmental Sciences professor to receive this honour.

The Global Futures Observatories (GWFO) was launched officially today. The launch event included welcoming remarks from GWFO Director John Pomeroy and Terry Duguid, MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Representatives of the four core universities (Saskatchewan, Waterloo, Laurier, McMaster) and the Real-Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation Network (RAEON) gave overviews of their observatories and associated research facilities. Philippe Van Cappellen presented on behalf of the Waterloo GWFO team.

The week of April 14-19, 2024, Ecohydrology Research Group members present their research at the 2024 European Geosciences Union (EGU) Conference. This annual conference is held as a hybrid event, with the in-person session taking place in Vienna. The EGU General Assembly 2024 brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences.

Ecohydrology Research Group MSc student Ali Reza Shahvaran successfully defended his thesis on Friday, April 5, 2024. Ali Reza’s thesis is titled "Chlorophyll-a Mapping in Oligo-Mesotrophic Waters Using Remote Sensing Imagery: A Case Study of Western Lake Ontario."

The Water Institute organized a full day of activities to celebrate World Water Day 2024. The afternoon included a panel session to explore Waterloo’s legacy in developing approaches and tools for sustainable water management under the $78 million pan-Canadian Global Water Futures (GWF) program.

A one-day workshop entitled “Implementation of an Ensemble Watershed Modelling Framework to Support Adaptive Management in the Canadian side of the Lake Erie basin” was held on March 21 at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

The Ontario Groundwater Geoscience 2024 Open House was held on February 27 (in-person) and February 29 (virtual). The full program can be obtained from the Ontario Geological Survey Open File Report 6406. Dr. Jovana Radosavljevic from the Ecohydrology Research Group (ERG) gave her presentation “Beyond Phosphorus: Salinization as a Driver of Eutrophication Symptoms in North American Lakes”.

A new paper published in the journal Applied Geochemistry relates data on lake water chemistry to land cover changes and road salt applications for Lake Wilcox located in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. The paper is co -authored by ERG members Jovana Radosavljevic, Stephanie Slowinski, Fereidoun Rezanezhad, Mahyar Shafii and Philippe Van Cappellen, alongside co-author Bahram Gharabaghi.

The Ecohydrology Research Group, in collaboration with the Wetland Soils & Greenhouse Gas Exchange Laband the Waterloo Wetland Laboratory, hosted another successful World Wetlands Day Research Symposium at the University of Waterloo on Friday February 2nd, 2024. This was the 12^th year that the University of Waterloo celebrated World Wetlands Day.

A new paper published in the journal Chemosphere presents the results of experiments looking at the interactions and competition between dissolved phosphorus and silicon (mostly found in the forms of the anions phosphate and silicate) during the precipitation of iron(III) oxyhydroxides as a result of iron(II) oxidation. The paper’s first author, Lu Huang, is a former ERG PhD student. Her co-authors are ERG members Chris T. Parsons, Stephanie Slowinski and Philippe Van Cappellen.