News

The 5th International EcoSummit Congress, EcoSummit 2016 - Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change, was held in Montpellier, France from August 29 to September 1, 2016.Fereidoun gave a talk entitled “Structure of peatland soils and implications for water storage, flow and solute transport”, with co-authors J. S. Price (University of Waterloo), W. L. Quinton (Wilfrid Laurier University), B. Lennartz (Rostock University), T. Milojevic, P. Van Cappellen.

Check out the new publication by PhD student Bingjie Shi on the bioavailability to iron reducing bacteria of ferric iron in clay minerals, which appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The paper made the cover of the journal (http://pubs.acs.org/toc/esthag/50/16)!

Philippe Van Cappellen attended the 2^nd Sino-Canada Workshop on Plateau Lakes Research, which was held August 14-16 at Yunnan University, Kunming, China.  The workshop focused on the challenges facing the protection and management of water resources in the Plateau Lakes region of Yunnan. Issues ranged from non-point source pollution to invasive species and ecological risk assessment. Break-out sessions allowed the participants to formulate joint research projects between Chinese and Canadian partners.

Fereidoun visited (June 20^th to July 28^th, 2016) the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Rostock University in Germany as part of a Mercator Fellowship awarded to him to collaborate with new Baltic TRANSCOAST Research Training Group funded by German Research Foundation (DFG) (2015-2020). Baltic TRANSCOAST group studies the hydrodynamic, (bio)geochemical and biological processes at the interface between land and sea.

In a new paper published in Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, Ecohydrology Research Group members describe how electrokinetics can be used to transport known contaminant degrading bacteria into low-permeability soils. The work opens the way to apply electrokinetic techniques to deliver non-native bacteria into contaminated soils for bioremediation purposes.

The paper is available electronically by visiting:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-016-2991-z

In November 2015, the Government of Ontario and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote the exchange of young scientists between the two jurisdictions. The goals of the Young Scientist Exchange program (YSEP) are to (1) raise awareness and facilitate a greater understanding of the respective scientific cultures and research practices and systems of Ontario and China, (2) encourage the development of leadership skills among YSEP participants as well as future “science ambassadors” between the two jurisdictions, and (3) facilitate

This week the Ecohydrology Research Group is hosting two visitors: Dr. Mike Krom (University of Haifa) and Dr. Yong Chen (Huazhong University of Science and Technology). Dr. Krom is working closely with Helen Powley and Philippe on nutrient cycling in the Mediterranean Sea. He also gave a seminar on “Silica Cycling in the Eastern Mediterranean” on Tuesday. Dr. Chen is one of five Chinese researchers joining the 2016 (round 1) Ontario-China Young Scientist Exchange program (YSEP). He is exploring opportunities for collaboration with the Ecohydrology Research Group.

After the Goldschmidt Conference, Philippe, Christina, Ekatarina and Igor travelled to Nara, where we were hosted by Dr. Mayumi Seto at Nara Women’s University. They had three days of intense discussions about possible joint projects and exchanges. On July 5, Christina, Ekatarina and Igor presented their research in a series of public seminars, while Philippe gave an overview of the range of activities within the Ecohydrology Group. The presentations were followed by a lively discussion with the audience. They also enjoyed exploring Nara and participated in a “floating noodles” contest.

Six members of the Ecohydrology Research Group (Philippe, Raoul, Christina, Taylor, Igor and Ekatarina) attended the 2016 Goldschmidt Conference in Yokohama, Japan, from June 26 to July 1. They presented a total of 8 papers under Theme 14 (Biogeochemistry: sessions 14f, 14 j, 14k) and Theme 15 (Environmental Geochemistry and Anthropogenic Impacts: sessions 15c, 15i).

The 21^st International Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources 2016 is being held at the University of Toronto, June 20-24. Philippe presented an invited paper entitled Predictive Modeling of Changes in Riverine Nutrient Fluxes due to Damming, with co-author Taylor Maavara. The presentation was part of the session Novel Developments and Data-Integration in Complex Biogeochemical and Hydrological Process Models, organized by Christof Meile (University of Georgia) and Li Li (University of Pennsylvania).