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Three Water Institute members will receive funding to advance research and encourage partnerships that will lead to innovative approaches that improve the well-being of Canadians.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is awarding the funding through Insight Grants, Insight Development Grants, and Partnership Development Grants.

Water Institute member Blair Feltmate, the Head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, was the guest speaker at a municipality information session in Lakeshore to inform residents on how to prevent future flooding by taking advantage of the backwater valve subsidy program. Feltmate spoke on the growing threat of basement flooding.

Waterloo researchers have found that more than 30 per cent of rural groundwater samples collected in the Nottawasaga River Watershed, including those from domestic wells, show evidence for contamination by local septic system wastewater.

Water Institute member Christine Dow, assistant professor in Waterloo’s Department of Geography and Environmental Management, was awarded an NSERC Canada Research Chair in Glacier Hydrology and Ice Dynamics. The appointment is valued at $500,000 over five years.

Dow’s research interests are focused on the development of subglacial hydrological networks and their impact on ice dynamics on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. She analyzes these systems using a combination of numerical modelling methods and data integration.

The University of Waterloo is Canada’s most innovative university, according to a reputational survey from Maclean’s magazine.

In late September, a delegation of 12 researchers from the Water Institute participated in the second Sino-Canadian Water Environment Workshop in Waterloo with officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES).

The first workshop, which took place in Hangzhou, China in May 2015, resulted in the adoption of the 2015-2017 China-Canada Bilateral Workplan which identified CRAES and the Water Institute as respective Chinese and Canadian lead contact agencies under the water management theme.

Beating the cold has taken on new meaning for University of Waterloo researchers who are working to help Canadian wastewater treatment plants become more environmentally sustainable.

One of the research group’s projects involves a problem at a plant in the southern Ontario community of Keswick that is subject to stringent discharge limits.