By Nick Skinner
Laurier Campus Magazine
Fall 2020

Nearly 4,000 km northwest of Wilfrid Laurier University’s southern Ontario campuses, where mainland Canada meets the Arctic Ocean, lies Trail Valley Creek Arctic Research Station. Located between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, it is Laurier’s northern-most research station and this year marks its 30th anniversary.

Now the longest-running hydrologically focused Arctic research station in Canada, Trail Valley Creek has become a productive field site for Laurier’s Centre for Cold Regions and Water Science, which maintains more than 50 research sites north of Ontario’s Ring of Fire. It is also central to the university’s decade-long partnership with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Dedicated to understanding and predicting environmental changes near the treeline in the western Canadian Arctic, the research station is an interactive training ground for Laurier students and hosts international collaborators from organizations including NASA and the University of Edinburgh.

Read the full article here.

Bryn Levy
Star Phoenix, November 19, 2020

“Maybe it sounds silly, but I really have to love a place to understand it scientifically as well.”

Growing up downwind of Lake Erie may have helped steer John Pomeroy toward a career in water science.
“I was always taught ‘never touch lake water,’ ” he says of his childhood in northern Ohio.

“The area I lived in was very polluted. The river nearby would catch fire because of the heavy oil slicks on it. Lake Erie was dying at the time and the stench of dead fish off it was awful,” Pomeroy, now 60, says from his home just outside Saskatoon.

Pomeroy currently serves as Canada research chair in water resources and climate change at the University of Saskatchewan, as well as director of the school’s Global Water Futures Programme and the University of Saskatchewan Centre for Hydrology.

Read the full article here.

USask-led Global Water Futures announces 12 new projects to advance water security across Canada

Mark Ferguson, and USask Research Profile and Impact
USask News
Oct 28, 2020

After four years of transformative research, the University of Saskatchewan (USask)–led Global Water Futures (GWF) program—the world’s largest university-led freshwater research program —is launching the second phase of its seven-year mission with a $2.5-million investment in 12 new critically important water security projects.

Read the article here.

Global Water Futures: Solutions to Water Threats in an Era of Global Change
by Stacey Dumanski, Stephanie Merrill, Chris DeBeer, John Pomeroy

Water News
Volume 39, number 3 – Fall/Winter 2020

Canada is losing its cool.  The climate in Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, with some areas in the north tripling that pace. Precipitation is changing too, with increases in many parts of the country and greater concentrations in floods and droughts. Climate and water are fundamentally linked in the earth system – water governs the climate and in turn climate affects water availability and timing. Together they support diverse ecosystems and aspects of water for human use: food production, manufacturing and recreation. This rapid climate warming, coupled with land use changes, has already resulted in destructive changes to the Canadian hydrology and that of cold regions around the world. Snowpacks are declining, glaciers are retreating with accelerated melt, precipitation patterns are changing, all while floods are intensifying and risk of drought and wildfires are increasing. All of these changes pose great challenges to the security of our critical infrastructure, ecosystems, and human health.

Water News Magazine is available to members of the Canadian Water Resources Association.  Membership information can be viewed at: https://cwra.org/en/membership/