News

Professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate Philippe Van Cappellen has been selected to receive an Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision this year from the University of Waterloo. Prof Van Cappellen was nomimated for the award by his current and former graduate students and the nomination was supported by senior colleagues at the University of Waterloo.

A new paper published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials describes a new DNA-based biosensor that selectively measures concentrations of aqueous divalent mercury (Hg²⁺).

The Ecohydrology Research Group hosted a successful 8th Annual World Wetlands Day Research Symposium at the University of Waterloo on Monday, February 3. It was part of more than 1,200 events held worldwide to spread the important message that wetland biodiversity matters.

Ecohydrology Research Group student Linden Fairbairn successfully defended her MSc thesis on January 20. Her thesis is titled "Linking soil moisture content and carbon dioxide fluxes: From batch experiments to process-based modelling".

A paper by Igor Markelov, a former PhD student in the Ecohydrology Research Group, was selected as a Research Spotlight from the 22 peer-reviewed journals published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The Research Spotlight appeared in AGU’s weekly magazine EOS.

A new paper, co-authored by Drs. Stephane Ngueleu, Fereidoun Rezanezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen, has been published in Journal of Geofluids. The article, titled "Biodegradation Kinetics of Benzene and Naphthalene in the Vadose and Saturated Zones of a (Semi)-arid Saline Coastal Soil Environment", was written in collaboration with Drs. Riyadh Al-Raoush and Saeid Shafieiyoun from Qatar University.

In a new paper, ERG members Adrian Mellage, Christina Smeaton, Fereidoun Rezanezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen, together with colleagues from Technion and University of Delaware, describe the results of a fully saturated sand-filled column reactor experiment where the growth of the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis during nitrate reduction to ammonium is monitored using spectral induced polarization (SIP).

A new paper in Water Resources Research, co-authored by ERG members Serghei Bocaniov and Philippe Van Cappellen, assesses the fate of phosphorus loads to Lake St. Clair. The outflow of this fairly large but shallow lake enters Lake Erie, which has been experiencing re-eutrophication since the mid-1990s.

Camille Vautier successfully defended her PhD thesis at Université de Rennes 1 on Monday December 16. Ms. Vautier visited the Ecohydrology Research Group in July 2019 as an International Visiting Graduate Student in order to discuss her research on the water quality impacts of agricultural nitrogen legacies.

Ecohydrology members presented research at this year's fall meeting of the American Geophyiscal Union (AGU), which was the centennial year of the event. The conference was held in San Francisco, California, from December 9 to December 13.