News

Philippe visited the Laboratoire the Physique Subatomique et des Technologies Associées (SUBATECH) in Nantes on January 28-29. He met with members of the Radiochemistry group, including Dr. Catherine Landesman and Dr. Abdesselam Abdelouas, to discuss joint research projects using environmental radioisotopes. He presented a talk entitled “What’s in a Name: Ecohydrology – Waterloo Style”.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from inland waters remain a major source of uncertainty in global greenhouse gas budgets. In the paper published in the journal Global Change Biology a novel mechanistic modeling approach is presented to explicitly predict the N₂O production and emissions via nitrification and denitrification in rivers, reservoirs, and estuaries. The global inland water N₂O emissions estimated with this approach are 10-20 Gmol per year, with reservoirs releasing the most N₂O per unit surface area.

The Ecohydrology Research Group (ERG) and Qatar University are collaborating on a project to study the fate of petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in coastal aquifers of arid regions.

Adrian Mellage has successfully defended his PhD thesis titled "Hydrobiogeophysics: Linking geo-electrical Properties and Biogeochemical Processes in Shallow Subsurface Environments". Adrian completed his PhD with the Ecohydrology Research Group, at the University of Waterloo.

Environmental Science and Technology articles ASAP (as soon as publishable) now features a publication by Ecohydrology researchers Adrian Mellage, Laureline Vallée, Fereidoun Rezanezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen in collaboration with researchers from nanotechnology. The paper titled “Sensing Coated Iron-Oxide Nanoparticles with Spectral Induced Polarization (SIP): Experiments in Natural Sand Packed Flow-Through Columns” focuses on sensing engineered nanoparticles, designed for targeted hydrocarbon remediation, using spectral induced polarization (SIP).

A new paper, co-authored by Drs. Stephane Ngueleu, Fereidoun Rezanezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen, has been published in Journal of Contaminant Hydrology. The article, titled " Sorption of benzene and naphthalene on (semi)-arid coastal soil as a function of salinity and temperature ", was written in collaboration with Dr. Riyadh Al-Raoush from Qatar University.

The first Technion-Waterloo Research Symposium was held on the campus of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, 21-22 November, 2018. Ecohydrology researchers Philippe Van Cappellen and Adrian Mellage attended the symposium. Philippe presented a talk entitled “Exploring the Subsurface – Or how spectral induced polarization (SIP) can be used to monitor below-ground colloid fate and transport”.

Philippe Van Cappellen (Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Ecohydrology) participated as a panellist on Thursday, November 8th, in a session on "Water at the science-policy interface: Challenges and opportunities for Canada" at the 10^th annual Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC). The panel was put together by Global Water Futures and Ecohydrology Research group members, Homa Kheyrollah Pour (also conference co-chair and panel moderator), Tatjana Milojevic and Nancy Goucher (panel co-organizers).

The first international joint conference between the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) and the European Large Lakes Symposium (ELLS-IAGLR 2018), entitled "Big Lakes, Small World", is being held in Evian, France from September 23 to 28, 2018. The conference featured five days of plenaries, workshops, posters, and keynote presentations focused on Large Lakes’ research.