Ecohydrology Research Group member, Dr. Fereidoun Rezanezhad, is leading one of nine projects have been awarded funding under the highly competitive “Advancing Climate Change Science in Canada” initiative. The award recipients were announced by Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Catherine McKenna. Fereidoun, who is a Water Institute member and Assistant Professor in Waterloo’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, is leading the project titled "Winter Carbon Losses in Wetland Ecosystems under Current and Future Climates", which was awarded $468,500 for a period of 3 years. Fereidoun is one of two Water Insistute memebrs and researchers at the University of Waterloo to recieve this award.
Winter Carbon Losses in Wetland Ecosystems under Current and Future Climates
Project summary:
High latitude cold regions, including Arctic and northern areas of Canada, are warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, with the greatest warming occurring during the winter. Canada’s temperate to subarctic wetlands and permafrost peatlands hold large stores of carbon which are susceptible to loss under future climate warming scenarios. Therefore, understanding the factors which regulate the processes controlling greenhouse gas emissions during the non-growing season is critical for predicting the fate of these vulnerable carbon stocks and for creating climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.
With a focus on these critical ecosystems, the project brings together Canadian leaders from multiple disciplines from across universities with federal government scientists and policy makers to determine the drivers of non-growing season carbon cycling, develop process-based environmental models, and estimate CO2 emissions. In doing so, the project will address the knowledge gaps on emissions to provide data and tools to evaluate the impact of winter warming mitigation in controlling carbon losses from pan-Canadian wetland ecosystems.
Co-investigators:
- Philippe Van Cappellen (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences; Water Institute member)
- Jonathan Price (Department of Geography and Environmental Management; Water Institute member)
- William Quinton (Wilfrid Laurier University)
- Nathan Bisiliko(Laurentian University)
- Pascale Roy-Leveillee (Laurentian University)
Collaborators:
Christina Smeaton (Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland) and Nancy Goucher (Water Institute)
Supporting organization:
Canadian Forest Service Great Lakes Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada represented by Kara Webster