News

A paper by ERG group member Konrad Krogstad published in Frontiers in Environmental Science examines the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on nitrogen, sulfate, and chloride leaching from fertilized and unfertilized soil columns. Experiment and model results show that freeze-thaw cycles promote nitrifying conditions in the upper oxidized portion of the fertilized soil columns. The findings indicate that unwanted nitrogen enrichment in agroecosystems caused by pre-winter nitrogen fertilizer application may be exacerbated by changing freeze-thaw activity.

A new research article titled “Current State of Microplastic Pollution Research Data: Trends in Availability and Sources of Open Data” authored by ERG undergraduate co-op student Tia Jenkins has been published. The article published in Frontiers in Environmental Science investigated the findability and accessibility of research data within the microplastics community.

The week of July 11^th- 15^th 2022, Ecohydrology Research Group members are presenting their research at the Goldschmidt 2022 Conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i.

A new paper in Frontiers in Environmental Science, co-authored by Ecohydrology Research Group member Fereidoun Rezanezhad assessed the impact of biobased residues and fertilizer on greenhouse gas emissions during spring freeze-thaw events. The results showed that the greenhouse gas fluxes were significantly different among the soil amended with different biobased residues and the freeze-thaw events due to intense microbial activity and anaerobic conditions.

Abstract submissions are open for session B068 - Wetlands and Peatlands in a Changing Climate: Science and Management at the 2022 AGU Fall Meeting (Dec 12 – 16, Chicago, IL)!

Submit your abstract by 3 August 2022: https://www.agu.org/Fall-Meeting

This year again, the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute and Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change co-hosted the 2022 summer school on “Climate Change and Water Security in Urbanized Watersheds”. The summer school ran over three weeks, from May 31 to June 17 and targeted graduate students and practitioners who are passionate about learning more about applying interdisciplinary approaches to climate change and associated water security challenges in urbanizing watersheds.

The yearly overview of the major advances in water quality modeling in the Global Water Futures (GWF) program was presented by Philippe Van Cappellen. After a general overview of the various activities in the water quality core modeling group by Philippe, some of the core modelers gave short presentations on their work. They included presentations by Befekadu Woldegiorgis, Julie Terry, and Pouya Sabokruhie from University of Saskatchewan, and Mahyar and Sarah Kaykhosravi from ERG.

Check out the new review on DNA-based biosensors for water quality monitoring by researchers from Prof. Juewen Liu’s group in the Department of Chemistry and ERG members Philippe Van Cappellen and Kunfu Pi (now a faculty member at China University of Geosciences, Wuhan). While functional DNA molecules have been used for the detection of environmental contaminants in water, their practical applications have remained limited. To address this challenge, the review paper highlights recent efforts to develop field-deployable water quality biosensors.

Members of Ecohydrology Research Group attended the Global Water Futures 2022 Annual Open Science Meeting (GWF ASM) virtual conference on May 16^th – 18^th 2022! 

Day 2 Parallel Scientific Sessions:

Water quality – General

Presentation from:

Tia Jenkins: Where are the Microplastics Data to Support Water Quality Management and Environmental Policy?

Featuring a lightning talk from Serghei Bocaniov

Water Quality – Nutrients

Presentations from: