CH Prof Cherie Westbrook was interviewed for an article for Saskatoon Home Page on the current hydrological state of play in Saskatchewan: with an unprecedented amount of rainfall through the spring, on top of already wet soil, and a natural physiography not yet evolved to encourage ordered runoff, the water table is effectively ‘full up’.
The article is available here

CH MSc student Alasdair Morrison is blogging about his field work experience in the Rockies this summer. His goal is to inventory Rocky Mountain peatlands, especially those infested with beaver: he is using ground penetrating radar to search for buried beaver paleoponds, to give us insight into beaver as a soil forming agent. The blog is at: dontrunfromthebears.blogspot.ca
In his words to supervisor Dr Cherie Westbrook: “I’m trying to keep it reasonably entertaining and funny, so I may be using a bit of exaggeration and artistic licence at some points for comedy effect. I just don’t want you to get worried about when I talk about trespassing, and getting lost etc! I’m hoping it comes off as a reasonably fun and honest (bar exaggerations) account of what happens during field work!”

CH PhD student Nicholas Kinar won the D.M. Gray Award at the 2012 Canadian Geophysical Union meeting in Banff, Alberta on June 8 for his paper and talk on Acoustic Imaging and Measurement of Snow.
Nicholas won the Horton Award from the American Geophysical Union in December 2011 and so is the first to achieve the ‘grand slam’ of North American hydrology awards.
Many congratulations, Nicholas!

This week’s edition of Canmore’s Rocky Mountain Outlook carried a detailed report on Why Cold Matters: The State and Fate of Canada’s Ice and Snow, an evening of presentations co-hosted by the Centre for Hydrology and the Interpretive Guides’ Association on Thursday, March 1.
Presenters included Prof John Pomeroy (Director of the Centre for Hydrology), Bob Sandford (CH associate and chair of the Canadian arm of the UN’s Water for Life Decade), and glaciologist Dr Shawn Marshall (University of Calgary): all three are key members of the Western Watersheds Research Collaborative.
Their talks provided illustrations of entire ecosystems which have evolved in alpine and glacial habitats, and of the immense importance of snow and ice as store-houses of water for human use. With changes to global climate likely to lead to temperature increases of as much as 4° C in the next few decades, their continued existence is looking increasingly precarious.
The article is available on the Outlook’s web-site.

CBC News has posted a report about a recent review of operations at Lake Diefenbaker preceding and during the floods of late Spring 2011, conducted by U of S hydrologists Prof John Pomeroy and Dr Kevin Shook: the article is available on the CBC Website.
The Winnipeg Free Press also published its perspective on the report.
The study, conducted on behalf of the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, highlights the challenges of striking the right balance when trading-off the competing demands of flood protection, electricty generation and water supply. It notes that minimum water levels in the lake have been rising over the years, and that inflows from snowmelt and rainfall were – despite the best efforts of SWA staff – under-predicted, due in part to a paucity of gauges in the watersheds which drain into the lake.
The report is available as a PDF from the SWA website at the following URL.

Two items of CH-related news from the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California, December, 2011:
Dr Phil Marsh, an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Hydrology, and Research Scientist and Project Chief in Environment Canada, was honoured by the American Geophysical Union as author of one of the top 5 papers in the journal Water Resources Research.
Marsh and co-author Dr Lance Lesack from Simon Fraser University received this award for their article entitled River-to-lake connectivities, water renewal, and aquatic habitat diversity in the Mackenzie River Delta.
Nicholas Kinar, who was named in July as winner of the prestigious Horton Research Grant, was formally recognized by the AGU at its Hydrology Section Luncheon at. Together with Prof. John Pomeroy, Nicholas presented a poster at the meeting entitled Acoustic Imaging and Analysis of Snowpack Physical Properties.

In his GIWS-sponsored presentation of October 7 2011, Northern Voices, Southern Choices: Water policy lessons for Saskatchewan drawn from leading Canadian and international examples, Bob Sandford, EPCOR Chair of the Canadian Partnership Initiative in support of the UN Water for Life Decade, made a strong case for the need for new thinking on water strategies for Saskatchewan. Major pressures are already being felt as a result of a combination of effects, including climate change, increased water use, and other environmental pressures, and these are likely only to intensify.
The StarPhoenix included a synopsis of the lecture on 8 October 2011, available here, and Bob was interviewed by CBC TV.

Centre for Hydrology alumni Nathalie Brunet and Ross Phillips have been taking part in an epic 7000km trans-national adventure, taking them from Vancouver BC to Saint John NB.
Travelling since April, largely by canoe, sometimes by bike (with boats trailered), and even portaging through high mountains on snowshoes, they hope to arrive on the right-hand side of the country sometime over the next few weeks.
The trek was awarded a $25,000 Expedition of the Year grant from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and is also receving funding from the RBC Blue Water Project.
They are hoping to use the trip to raise awareness of the importance of Canada’s freshwater resources, and to draw attention to the work done by both the Canadian Heritage River System and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Details of the trip are updated regularly on the team’s blog / website: they were also interviewed in Ottawa by the CBC.

Congratulations to Centre for Hydrology PhD student, Nicholas Kinar, who is one of two recipients of the American Geophysical Union Horton Research Grant in 2011.
There were 70 applicants for the grant, so it is a very prestigious award and will contribute to Nicholas’ research on acoustic imaging of snowpacks.
The AGU will recognize Nicholas at its Hydrology Section Luncheon at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California Dec 5-9 2011.
The full press release from the AGU is available here

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix included an editorial in its issue of 21st June 2011 discussing the need for increased funding of hydrological research, in order to improve methods for predicting and mitigating the effects of climate change, and included mention of the IP3 and DRI networks.
This topic has been brought into particular focus by this spring’s severe flooding throughout the Prairie Provinces.
The article is available from the Star Phoenix site, or in PDF form here.