News

Global Water Futures (GWF): Solutions to Water Threats in an Era of Global Change

The GWF program is a collaborative initiative between multiple Canadian universities and partner organizations funded through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. GWF aims to deliver risk management solutions for water resources and services – informed by leading edge water science and supported by innovative decision-making tools – in Canada and throughout the cold regions of the world.

Interdisciplinary approaches are key when investigating potential impacts from climate change on human, economic and environmental systems. Unexpected changes to the quantity and quality of water available to local communities and environments can have wide-ranging effects, including impacting public health, environmental resilience, and agricultural and food security. Four Water Institute researchers were recently awarded funding from the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Advanced Scholars Program to build institutional capacity in select Commonwealth countries to address linkage

During World Water Day celebrations on March 22, the Water Institute and the de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation announced an exciting three-year partnership that will combine water expertise and technology to help mitigate the threats facing our Great Lakes.

Roy Brouwer, Executive Director, Water Institute; Claude Perras, Executive Director, de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation

Collaborative Water Program student, Danielle Lindamood, was accepted into the "Water Innovation Lab - India" program in the fall of 2016. It brought together 35 students and water practitioners from around the world for a two-week field experience in locations around India. She spent two weeks overseas exploring different water problems and contexts, and presenting innovative ideas for solutions.

Below she has written about her experience in India and her experience in being a part of the Water Institute’s Collaborative Water Program.

Yesterday, Waterloo’s Water Institute and the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU formalizes the commitment to continue collaboration between China’s largest environmental research institute and the Water Institute in water management research, education and training.

Water Institute member and architecture professor, Elizabeth English, is leading a team of Waterloo School of Architecture researchers who want to build a floating pavilion in a flood zone of the Grand River.

Four researchers from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences are the co-recipients of a $672,000 USD grant from the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) to study the fate of groundwater pollutants in arid regions.

The Waterloo team, all members of the Water Institute, are part of a consortium including researchers from Qatar University, United Arab Emirates University, Utrecht University, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, and Université Libre de Bruxelles.

As Ontario reviews water-taking permit charges for bottled water companies like Nestlé, Water Institute member Rob de Loë urges us to think beyond the bottle.

A diagram representing Hug's "tree of life."

Biology professor Laura Hug’s A New View of the Tree of Life is ranked one of the most-discussed journal articles of 2016, according to Altmetric’s top 100 articles of 2016 list.