CH Fellow Bob Sandford, who also serves as EPCOR Chair for the UN University Institute for Water and Health, has recently co-authored a new book considering the risks and impacts associated with anthropogenic climate-change.

Written in partnership with Dr Jon O’Riordan, the book – titled The Climate Nexus: Water, Food, Energy and Biodiversity in a Changing World – explores connectivities between the climate-related threats currently looming over each of these components of the natural and human environments.

Intended to provide an accessible synopsis of key related issues and possible mitigating responses, the book draws on research from CH, the Adaptation to Climate Change Team at Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria’s Centre for Global Studies and other leading authorities on climate-related matters.

Sandford comments that the book “… explains the nexus of water, food, energy and biodiversity to show how critical the effect of changes of one are on the others. We hope to be able to demonstrate though, this is how we need to think differently about that nexus so that we can respond appropriately in terms of mitigating the impacts and adapting to the changing political structure”.

The Climate Nexus was profiled by both Vancouver’s Georgia Strait (here) and the Bow Valley’s Crag and Canyon (here) on 23rd December 2015: full publication details are available here.

CH’s Dr John Pomeroy has contributed to a one-hour special issue of Découverte, for the Radio Canada Channel.

Focusing on the vulnerability of Canadian water resources to climate-change, the program will include substantial discussion of CH’s research and the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory.

It will air on the evening of Sunday 6th December 2015 at 6:30pm, and will subsequently be available through the program’s website.

CH’s Prof. John Pomeroy and Bob Sandford, together with James Bruce (a former assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada), have contributed an op-ed to the Globe and Mail outlining the increasingly parlous state of water quantity and quality in Canada.

The article makes a strong case for establishing a federally-led strategy which would enable Canada to “join the rest of the developed world by measuring, forecasting and managing its water to promote our prosperity, environmental health and quality of life and to address threats posed by climate change”.

The piece – published on 29th November 2015 – is available for online viewing here.

CH’s Dr Cherie Westbrook was recently awarded second prize in the Society of Wetland Scientists‘ photographic competition, which attracted 136 entries.

Her picture, Fens Under Water, shows a part of Tierra del Fuego National Park (Argentina), where invasive beaver have caused the wide scale destruction of many ecosystems. It is shown below, and has also been included in the 2016 SWS calendar, available here.

The Tyee has published two articles by Ed Struzik covering opposite ends of the hydrological spectrum this week, both of which include contributions from CH director Dr John Pomeroy.

• Bracing for the Next Deluge (15 November 2015) – deals with flood-mitigation responses to the 2013 floods in Calgary and Alberta
• Don’t Tell These Ranchers Climate Change Isn’t Real (17 November 2015) – on approaches to improving drought-resistance in the prairies

The adventures of a group of six U. of S. students – including two CH alumni – during a trans-Canadian canoe odyssey in 2011 were covered in a recent article in the Regina Leader-Post: the piece is available online here.

CH research figured prominently in the Globe and Mail edition of Thursday 22nd October 2015, in the form of an article focusing on the rapid disintegration of the Peyto Glacier, observed during work by the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory (CHRO).

The article also referred to the inaugural workshop of the International Network for Alpine Research Catchment Hydrology (INARCH), hosted by CH’s Coldwater Laboratory, near Kananaskis, Alberta, from the 22nd to the 24th of October.

The article is available here for online viewing.

MSc student Emily Anderson has created a video for Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS) on NWT field work on the remote Bologna Glacier this summer. It’s available for online viewing here.

Wonderful video, Emily!

Two CH members were recently asked to contribute to an article in the Globe and Mail (11th October 2015), titled Protecting the health of Alberta’s Bow River.

Professor John Pomeroy and Bob Sandford are both quoted in the piece, which considers the Bow River’s historical significance as an iconic element in the Canadian Rockies, and the pressures it faces as a result of continuing anthropogenic landscape disruptions and climate-change.

The article is available online here.

The Calgary Herald of 4th October 2015 included an article describing CH research which has revealed continued rapid melting on the Athabasca and Peyto Glaciers in the Rocky Mountains.

The piece is available in its original form here, and also as a PDF archive.