There was excellent demand from across the country for the R Course at the CGU/CWRA meeting, but many from the U. of S. were unable to make it – so the Centre for Hydrology is giving an informal Introduction to R for Hydrologists class in late August for U. of S. faculty, staff and students who would like to start using this highly productive toolset in their hydrological calculations.
By Whom? Dr Kevin Shook, a research scientist with the Centre, who gave part of the R class to CGU
For Whom? Open only to U. of S. faculty, staff and students
How many? The first 80 people through the door will get a place!
When? Begins 9am, Thursday August 29th: continues all day
Where? Room 144 of Kirk Hall
In the spirit of open source software, the course will be
i) Free – no registration required
ii) Unofficial
iii) Open to any member of U. of S. faculty, staff or student body
The course will cover the following topics:
1. Getting started
– what R is and how it works
– getting and installing R
– getting help
– using the command line
– using the GUI
2. Using R
– data types
– commands
– importing/exporting data
– doing calculations
3. Graphs
– simple graphs
– special purpose graphs
– exporting graphs
– advanced graphing with ggplot2
4. Commonly used commands
– common statistical functions
– dealing with bad/missing data
– subsetting data
– aggregating data
5. Advanced
– linear models (regressions)
– writing R functions
– debugging
– accessing WISKI data from R
No background in R or programming is required. The course will be taught with demonstrations, so you are strongly encouraged to bring your laptop and work along. There is no credit or examination associated with this informal course – you will get out of it what you put into it.
You can download R from cran.stat.sfu.ca, and should load it and try it out before the course. R is most easily used with a GUI: probably the easiest and best is RStudio.
Author Archives: Jin
Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy – Special Announcement
The Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy has released its latest report based on the findings of a 2012 workshop on water management challenges in the Mackenzie River Basin.
The workshop, which took place in Vancouver from September 5 to 7, 2012, convened several experts in the fields of hydrology, law, economics, and biology with the goal of looking at the legal and scientific principles relevant to creating a co-ordinated basin-wide approach to management. John Pomeroy and Robert Sandford from the Centre for Hydrology contributed to writing the report. The workshop was co-hosted by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and Simon Fraser University’s Adaptation to Climate Change Team.
It concludes that hydrological regimes and the environment of the Basin are at risk from global warming and that the water and ecosystems of the Basin are globally important and require Basin residents and Canada to assume full stewardship responsibilities for the Basin. The Report recommends mandatory posting of significant performance bonds on the part of extractive industries wishing to operate in the Basin, increased water monitoring throughout the Basin, incorporation of local and enhanced scientific knowledge in decision making, re-invigorating the Mackenzie River Basin Board, and the use of the precautionary principle for developments and actions which could adversely affect the region. The Report can be downloaded here.
These details were also reported by the CBC, as visible online here, and Professor Pomeroy was interviewed about the report by CBC Radio 1’s The Trailbreaker and CBC TV News. Bob Sandford also contributed to a CTV News piece.
Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling Course – September 2013
The Centre for Hydrology will be running a course in Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling for U. of S. Graduate Students, from the 4th to the 5th of September 2013. Department approval is required, and the course must be taken for credit.
The course will aim to familiarize students with the principles of object-oriented physically-based hydrological process modelling for the cold regions of western and northern Canada, and train students to use the Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling Platform (CRHM) to create purpose built hydrological models that are appropriate for hydrological prediction problems in western and northern Canada.
On completion, students should be able to describe which physical process algorithms are most appropriate for modelling forested, prairie, mountain and arctic river basins under various levels of meteorological and parameter data availability, and use CRHM to construct and run an appropriate hydrological model for small river basins in western and northern Canadian environments.
More information, including pre-requisite qualifications and details of how to register, is available online here, and also in PDF format.
Snowmelt – The Movie!
Centre for Hydrology MSc (and soon to be PhD) student Phillip Harder has captured a fascinating sequence through the late and rapid melt of deep snowpack near Rosthern, SK (here), between 5 April and 15 May 2013.
The melt generated a sudden and impressive runoff response, which was captured by Phillip’s 30-minute time-lapse photography. The video is available here.
CH Views Published in Calgary Herald
CH Director Prof. John Pomeroy has again been in demand by the media: his views were sought by the Calgary Herald for an article on the increasing risks of natural hazards as a consequence of a changing climate. The piece is available online here.
CH Student Wins Awards
Congratulations to Phillip Harder, who has had a very good week: he was not only awarded a Dean’s Scholarship for his PhD studies at the Centre for Hydrology, but also the D.M. Gray Award for best student paper in hydrology at the Canadian Geophysical Union’s annual meeting.
Phillip’s paper was based on his MSc research on the assessment of uncertainty in hydrological models introduced by non-physical precipitation phase calculations.
Well done Phillip!
Changing Cold Regions Network Announced
The Centre for Hydrology will play a major role in the new Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN), for which NSERC announced funding of $5 million as part of the five year Climate Change and Atmospheric Research (CCAR) Initiative. The Network of over 50 researchers from Canada, USA, China, UK, France and Germany is headquartered at the University of Saskatchewan, and led by Professor Howard Wheater.
CCRN aims to understand, diagnose and predict interactions among the cryospheric, ecological, hydrological and climatic components of the changing Earth system at multiple scales, with a focus on the Saskatchewan and Peace-Athabasca-Mackenzie River Basins. It will improve our understanding of recent Earth system change in the cold interior of Canada, advance prediction of water, weather, and climate, improve our hydrological, ecological and climatological modeling capability, enhance our capacity for water management, and train the next generation of hydrologists.
The network will support research at several Centre for Hydrology research basins in the Canadian Rockies, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, provide funds for enhanced student training, and enable further development of the Cold Regions Hydrological Model. The funding of the network at this time is very important, given the extreme weather and water events and rapid climate change which have become evident in western and northern Canada.
Professor John Pomeroy announced the funding of the new network at the American Geophysical Union Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico on 17 May 2013. The presentation may be viewed here.
CH / CCRN in Calgary Herald
The Calgary Herald has published an article highlighting announcement of the Changing Cold Region Network, a major new research initiative in which CH will play a leading role: the page is available here.
CH Provides Insights on Flood-Risk to Media
Members past and present of the Centre for Hydrology have again been asked by various branches of the media to provide insights relating to snowmelt and the potential for flooding in Saskatchewan.
CH Director Prof. John Pomeroy and alumna Nathalie Brunet both contributed to a piece broadcast by the French language service of Radio Canada, which focused on the challenges of predicting flood risk in the Province, and the potential for automating forecasting methods. The clip is available here.
Dr Cherie Westbrook was asked by Global TV about the likelihood of imminent flooding in and around Saskatoon: the interview is available online here.
Prof. Pomeroy also provided an overview of the role of albedo in governing the timing and rate of snowmelt for The Afternoon Edition on Radio Canada: the interview is posted here and here.
The same theme was covered in an agricultural context by The Western Producer: the article is available here.
Hydrology Technician Opportunity at U of C
Dr Masaki Hyashi of the University of Calgary is seeking to hire a full-time technician, to contribute to a range of research in groundwater hydrology and related studies. Full details are available here.