News

Four interdisciplinary teams led by University of Waterloo researchers are set to advance water research in creative, unconventional ways. New approaches to detect and manage micropollutants, techniques that predict the impacts of climate change on snow and lakes, and new modelling techniques will be explored through $69,000 in Water Institute seed grants.

Today, the Water Institute announced the winners of its most recent competition.

Water Institute member Fereidoun Rezanezhad, assistant professor in Waterloo’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, attended a meeting in Beijing, China to discuss how to strengthen and develop collaborations in soil science environmental projects and technology between Water Institute members and the China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES).

For Water Institute member James Craig, surface water modelling started out as a side project.

Partners for Action director Shawna Peddle spoke to the CBC on the flood survey Windsor residents are being asked to take part in. In partnership with University of Waterloo researchers and the Red Cross, residents who have suffered the onslaught of floods in the area in recent years will be surveyed. The results will inform a national FloodSmart Canada campaign and provide insight into how to protect other Canadian communities from incurring similar damage.

Rob de Loë, Water Institute member and professor in Waterloo’s School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, is the new director of Waterloo’s graduate Collaborative Water Program (CWP).

Incentive programs to encourage farmers and other landowners to protect the environment are key to conservation, but new research shows issues such as lack of enforcement undermine their effectiveness on a global scale.

Achieving water quality goals for the Gulf of Mexico may take decades, according to findings by Water Institute researchers at the University of Waterloo.

The results, published today in Science, suggest that policy goals for reducing the size of the northern Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone may be unrealistic, and that major changes in agricultural and river management practices may be necessary to achieve the desired improvements in water quality.