News

Adrian Mellage, a PhD student in the Ecohydrology Research Group, has completed a successful two-month research exchange at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. The exchange was part of an ongoing research collaboration between the Ecohydrology Research Group at the University of Waterloo and the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Technion.

Philippe Van Cappellen and Kim Van Meter visited the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig on March 13-15. They held a series of high-level discussions to explore potential collaborations on the topic of coupled biogeochemistry-hydrology modelling. Central to the discussions were the challenges and opportunities in scale-dependent watershed modelling. A promising area of collaboration that emerged was the merging of biogeochemical functions into UFZ’s mesoscale hydrological model - stay tuned! 

The Water Institute has awarded Seed Grant Program funding to five research proposals. Members of the Ecohydrology Research Group are involved in two of funded projects:

In a new paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Ecohydrology group members, Helen Powley and Philippe Van Cappellen, and collaborator Michael Krom, report on the sensitivity of dissolved oxygen distributions within the Mediterranean Sea to future climate driven changes in its thermohaline circulation. The results indicate that the oxygenation of the Mediterranean Sea is quite resilient to the projected changes in circulation.

Philippe Van Cappellen joined a delegation of the Water Institute to China. The delegation held talks with researchers and officials from Wuhan University, China University of Geosciences, Southwest University, Chongqing University, China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) and Hohai University.

Ecohydrology group member, Helen Powley, will present her Ph.D. thesis proposal entitled, 

Dynamic modelling of water and nutrient fluxes in the Mediterranean basin: linking land processes and marine ecosystems at the regional scale.

New Publication from the Ecohydrology research group

Global hydrobelts and hydroregions: improved reporting scale for water-related issues?

Rachele Fischer, previously a co-op student with the Ecohydrology research group, has been awarded a research internship to the University of Tuebingen, Germany. This twelve week internship is fully funded through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). While there Rachel will be working on hydrological and geochemical controls on microbial activity in groundwater systems. Congratulations Rachele!

Kiosk on the Waterfront: The Science of Canada's Water

Dr. Philippe Van Cappellen will attend the NSERC science kiosk on the Waterfront: The Science of Canada's Water, to be held in the Senate of Canada on Monday, October 15, 2012. The Honourable Kelvin K. Ogilvie, Senator, will present the kiosk to inform parliamentarians about research in all aspects of water. The Senator will be accompanied by Dr. Suzanne Fortier, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) and researchers from across Canada, including Dr. Van Cappellen.

Unleashing a flood to understand the future

How will ecosystems survive extreme weather caused by climate change?