The Water Institute is pleased to announce that four research teams have been awarded funding in the Winter 2022 seed grant competition.
The Water Institute’s seed grant program was initiated in 2014 to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration, international partnerships, and to encourage the development of new research areas that tackle increasingly complex global water issues.
This year’s seed grant projects include diverse initiatives and unique collaborations, delivering much-needed inspiration and optimism moving into a post-pandemic season.
1. The role of community service organizations in addressing water security in low-income communities in middle to high-income countries: a case study from Brazil
Primary
Applicant:
Susan
Elliott,
Department
of Geography
and
Environmental
Management
Co-Applicants:
Warren
Dodd,
School
of
Public
Health
Sciences
The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on existing inequalities around the globe. This is particularly so in the context of inadequate access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). Approximately 3 billion people currently lack basic handwashing facilities at home, mainly in developing countries. And while we those who have access assume that the problem is focused in the global south, further investigation reveals otherwise.
Water-rich nations like Canada, the US and Brazil experience substantial gaps in access to basic water-related services, with millions of people lacking access to safe water at home.
This team will investigate the socioecological barriers to access to safe WASH in water-rich countries. They will undertake both policy analysis and deliberate dialogue with key stakeholders in a case study in Brazil to inform a large-scale research initiative that entails both intervention and evaluation.
2. WAMPUM Lab: Reclaiming Indigenous Women's Water Governance
Primary
Applicant:
Kelsey
Leonard,
School
of
Environment,
Resources,
and
Sustainability
Co-Applicants:
Jennifer
Liu,
Department
of
Anthropology
Alex
C.
McAlvay,
Institute
of
Economic
Botany,
New
York
Botanical
Garden
This project aims to develop innovative research solutions for the reclamation of historical diplomatic arts – wampum aquaculture, fashioning and treatymaking, improving the capacity of Indigenous women to develop as leaders for climate action and water sustainability.
The project hopes to help reestablish traditional wampum trade networks from the eastern coastal regions to the Great Lakes of Turtle Island (North America). The seed grant will also provide Indigenous women with adequate resources, training, and a supportive community to define a new generation of wampum diplomacy for water governance. Lastly, the seed grant is meant to cultivate a network of Indigenous women HQP that connect across the lifecycle of wampum from harvest to production to diplomatic action to create, innovate, and make their ideas and solutions in response to climate change and water governance a reality.
3. Metabolic Risk on Islands: Water Security in the Caribbean (MetaRisk-Water)
Primary
Applicant:
Simron
J.
Singh,
School
of
Environment,
Enterprise
and
Development
Co-Applicants:
Kumaraswamy
Ponnambalam,
Department
of
Systems
Design
Engineering
Brent
Doberstein,
Department
of
Geography
and
Environmental
Management
Nidhi
Nagabhatla,
(UNU-CRIS)
United
Nations
University
–
CRIS/McMaster
University
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are at a tipping point from climate change impacts. They contribute less than 1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but suffer disproportionally from the effects of global warming such as sea-level rise and extreme events as hurricanes, flooding, droughts and water-stress. They are increasingly vulnerable to water stress from the perspective of circulation, integrity, and availability of critical resources, and lack of groundwater protection legislation acts as a barrier for aquifer recharge to maintain the sustainability of water stocks.
The MetaRisk-Water team plans to:1. Conduct an environmental scan of literature related to water stress, risks and experienced impacts in the Caribbean. 2. Develop a common framework and definitions to aid understanding of systemic risks associated with water metabolism (stocks and flows) and related security. 3. Develop strategic partnerships in the Caribbean for a larger research proposal on establishing a Decision Support System (DSS) for enhancing water security and water management in the Caribbean, an area that receives more than 44 million tourists annually.
4. Modelling the transport and beaching of plastics and microplastics in the Great Lakes
Primary
Applicant:
Marek
Stastna,
Department
of
Applied
Mathematics
Co-Applicants:
Philippe
Van
Cappellen,
Department
of
Earth
and
Environmental
Sciences
Michael
Waite,
Department
of
Applied
Mathematics
Francis
Poulin,
Department
of
Applied
Mathematics
Serghei
Bocaniov,
Department
of
Earth
and
Environmental
Sciences
The transport and beaching of plastics and microplastics is a significant problem for the modelling community. Scientific questions include the role of the winds in systematically driving currents, seasonality including partial ice cover, the role of surface waves in both offshore and nearshore regions (i.e., for beaching of pollutants), and microplastic aggregation and sinking processes controlling the vertical distribution.
A recent Water Institute sponsored discussion with the University of Utrecht identified the modelling of microplastics transport as an important area for collaboration, particularly application of the OceanParcels package to the global oceans for the purpose of modelling the fate and transport of plastics and microplastics.
The
proposed
project
aims
to
achieve
the
following
goals:
1. Address
whether
strategies
applied
to
modelling
the
global
ocean
transfer
to
the
“inland
seas”
of
the
Laurentian
Great
Lakes
(in
particular,
the
roles
of
seasonality
and
the
atmosphere).
2. Update
the
2015
review
to
include
modeling
and
more
recent
field
work
(e.g.,
that
performed
by participant
Wells
among
others).
Congratulations to all of our research teams.