News

The Ireland Canada University Foundation (ICUF) has announced the inaugural De Chastelain Scholars.  This program is named in honour of General John de Chastelain in recognition of his pivotal role in the Northern Ireland peace process and supports research that contributes to more peaceful, inclusive and sustainable societies.

A new paper published in Scientific Reports compiled in-situ carbon dioxide data for 21 peatland sites across Canada, spanning seven ecoregions. With the aim of evaluating the performance of different models in predicting carbon dioxide flux, these measurements were coupled with 32 remotely sensed and gridded hydroclimatic variables.

The Canada Water Agency held a two-day in-person workshop on October 19 and 20, 2026, in Manitoba (Winnipeg) focused on advancing collaborative efforts toward developing a National Water Security Strategy (NWSS) and a National Freshwater Data Strategy (NFDS).

More than 120 members of the global water community joined an international webinar hosted by the Global Water Futures Observatory (GWFO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and partners to explore hydrological data interoperability and water quality data standards. The event highlighted the importance of collaboration, shared standards, and practical approaches to improving the accessibility and use of water data across organizations and regions.

A new paper published in Frontiers of Environmental Science presents findings of a combined experimental and modelling study investigating the effects of soil moisture and temperature on methane consumption in landfill cover soils. 

Philippe visited University of Geosciences – Wuhan on September 22-29 to discuss ongoing and emerging research projects.

During the 2026 winter and spring terms, undergraduate student Miles Yoshida spent his co-ops developing and calibrating a fibre-optic oxygen sensor system to measure soil oxygen levels. Miles worked as part of the ERG under the supervision of Philippe Van Cappellen and Fereidoun Rezanezhad.

A new paper in Environmental Science & Technology describes a novel microwave-microfluidic platform for flow-through detection and identification of microplastics in aqueous media. 

Thinking about gaining real-world field experience? 

Join us on September 15th at 5:00pm in STC 2002 for an info session on the upcoming EARTH 490 Field Course in Vietnam this December! 

Ecohydrology Research Group members have co-authored a new paper, “Effects of water table fluctuations on naphthalene degradation: Soil column experiment and modeling”. Using a 300-day soil column experiment, the study examined how fluctuating water tables influence the breakdown of petroleum contaminants.