News

Today, we held our first in-person research seminar since the start of the pandemic. About 40 people gathered to hear Dr. Lewis Alcott present his seminar entitled “Phosphorus and climate through time and sampling uncertainties in the past and present”. Dr. Alcott is currently a Hutchinson Environmental Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University working on the characterization and implications of the spatial and temporal variability of GHG sources. He holds a PhD degree from the University of Leeds.

This year’s theme of the 9^th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research (ICWRER) is Bridging the Gaps of Interdisciplinary Sustainability for Complex Water and Environmental Systems. The Conference was held virtually on April25 to 27. Philippe gave an invited talk in the session on Eco-water Security and Smart Water Management in Large River Basins, chaired by Profs. Jun Xia and Gangsheng Wang. The topic of the talk was Biogeochemical Impacts of River Damming: Lessons Learned and Implications for Watershed Management.

Philippe Van Cappellen has been awarded the J. Tuzo Wilson Medal, the Canadian Geophysical Union's (CGU) greatest honour! Congratulations Philippe!

Check out the press release here: https://uwaterloo.ca/water-institute/news/philippe-van-cappellen-wins-prestigious-canadian-geophysical

A new paper reconstructs the agricultural phosphorus (P) inputs across the province of Ontario since the 1960s. The first author of the paper, entitled Agricultural phosphorus surplus trajectories for Ontario, Canada (1961-2916), and erosional export risk, is former ERG MSc student Tamara Van Staden. Co-authors include the ERG members Chris Parsons, Zahra Akbarzadeh, and Philippe Van Cappellen, as well as their colleagues Kim Van Meter and Nandita Basu.

The oxidation of Fe(II) plays an important role in the biogeochemical cycling of redox-sensitive elements and the fate and transport of pollutants in subsurface environments. In a joint study by researchers from ERG and China University of Geosciences, the kinetics of aqueous Fe(II) oxidation by O₂ were measured at variable pH in the presence of riboflavin and desferrioxamine B as representative flavins and siderophores, respectively. The study closes important gaps in our understanding of the reaction mechanisms involved.

A Letter article by Ecohydrology members Arash Rafat, Eunji Byun, Fereidoun Rezanezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen was published in Environmental Research Communications journal! In this study, the impact of alternative definitions of the non-growing season (NGS) for a peatland site with multiple years of CO2 flux records was analysed with defining three NGS climatic parameters: air temperature, soil temperature, and snow cover.

Phosphorus (P) retention in Fanshawe Reservoir was evaluated based on a two-year intensive sampling of water chemistry. The Fanshawe Dam is located on the Thames River, the largest Canadian tributary source of P to the western basin of Lake Erie.  The results indicate that Fanshawe Reservoir reduces the total river P load by as much as 47%. The reservoir, however, is not only an important P sink on the Thames River, but also modulates the seasonal variability and chemical speciation of the river’s P load.

A study led by Prof. Nandita Basu published in Nature Geoscience provides a roadmap for scientists, policymakers, and the public to overcome the challenges associated with agricultural nitrogen legacies that delay improvements to water quality. While we now have a much better theoretical understanding of the accumulation and fate of nitrogen legacies in agricultural landscapes, there is an urgent need for more systematic measurements and monitoring to effectively support water quality policies.

The Ecohydrology Research Group hosted a successful 10th Annual World Wetlands Day Research Symposium at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday February 2, thanks to the efforts not only of our group but also that of wetland researchers across the University.This is the second year in a row that ERG has been partnering with the Waterloo Public Library to organize the symposium virtually.

A new paper by Tariq Aziz and Philippe Van Cappellen uses economic valuation to highlight the importance of Southern Ontario’s wetlands for sediment and phosphorus filtration. A total annual value of $4.2 billion in sediment and phosphorus filtration services was found based on the average rate of sediment accretion plus the associated total phosphorus concentration in each type of wetland in Southern Ontario and estimating how much the removal and disposal of the same amounts of sediment and phosphorus in stormwater management facilities in Ontario would cost.