News

Ecohydrology group MSc student Nady Kao successfully defended his thesis on December 15, 2020 in a virtual defence. Nady's thesis is titled "Influence of a dammed reservoir on nutrient (N, P, Si) loads and ratios of the Thames River, Ontario". His research was funded by a grant from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to study phosphorus dynamics in the Thames River. Nady was supervised by Drs. Philippe Van Cappellen and Chris Parsons (Environment and Climate Change Canada) and the committee included Drs.

From September to November the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute, in collaboration with the United Nations’ Environment Programme 'Global Peatland Initiative' (UNEP GPI), hosted three virtual workshops to bringing together 150 Canadian peatland researchers, government officials, private sector representatives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Mehdi Gharasoo of the Ecohydrology Research Group co-authored an article, titled “Deep Learning Neural Network Approach for Predicting the Sorption of Ionizable and Polar Organic Pollutants to a Wide Range of Carbonaceous Materials”, in collaboration with the researchers at the Vienna University, Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, which was published in Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T). The article has been selected as one of the top cited articles in ES&T by the authors from Europe region from 2018-2020.

By incorporating a synthetic DNA sequence in a polyacrylamide hydrogel, a new nanomaterial able to measure very low concentrations of mercury in water samples was developed. Next, the new material was incorporated in a Diffusive Gradient in Thin Film (DGT) holder to produce a cost-effective, easy-to-operate, field-deployable DGT-DNA sensor for aqueous mercury(II), which requires no sample preparation.

A new paper published in Freshwater Science by a joint Sino-Canadian team, including Waterloo researchers Philippe Van Cappellen and William Taylor, explores the mechanisms responsible for algal blooms in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR).

Ecohydrology group PhD candidate Lu Huang successfully defended her PhD thesis on November 18, 2020. Her thesis is titled "Mechanisms controlling the recycling of nutrient silicon in freshwater sediments: An experimental study of theinteractions between silicon, iron and phosphorus". Lu was supervised by Drs. Philippe Van Cappellen and Chris Parsons (Environment and Climate Change Canada), and the committee consisted of Drs.

Bingjie Shi, Stephane Ngueleu, Fereidoun Rezanezhad, Stephanie Slowinski, Geertje Johanna Pronk, Christina Smeaton, and Philippe Van Cappellen of the Ecohydrology Research Group co-authored a paper titled “Sorption and Desorption of the Model Aromatic Hydrocarbons Naphthalene and Benzene: Effects of Temperature and Soil Composition”, which was recently published in Frontiers in Environmental Chemistry.

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network has released 9 Exemplar data management plan (DMPs). Among exemplar DMPs is the Data Management Plan for the Ecohydrology Research Group, the first for the University of Waterloo that is publicly available.

On October 22, the University of Waterloo’s Office of Research and the Office of Advancement organized a showcase event to celebrate the progress of the University of Waterloo and Technion partnership, which has been supported through the Schwartz-Reisman Foundation beginning in 2014.

A new paper was published in the journal Ecological Indicators by ERG researchers Chris Wellen (now at Ryerson University) and Philippe Van Cappellen, together with colleagues from the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks and Environment and Climate Change Canada. In this study, the authors estimate the sample sizes required to detect statistically significant changes in annual nutrient loads and flow weighted concentrations brought about by conservation measures in agricultural watersheds.