The Calgary Herald (8th October 2013) has published an ‘op-ed’ by Centre for Hydrology Director Professor John Pomeroy.

In the article, Prof. Pomeroy discusses options for reducing the risks of exposure to, and damage from, events such as this summer’s flooding in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (which seem set to become Canada’s most expensive natural disaster).

He argues that improved prediction, avoidance and active mitigation should be integrated into a new Canadian national strategy, with hydrological science playing a key role.

The piece is available online here.

The Globe and Mail has published an important commentary by Centre for Hydrology Fellow Bob Sandford, focusing on the recently-released Working Group 1 Report of the 5^th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. The article is available here.

While it is generally accepted in science that global change is occurring and has a substantive anthropogenic cause, and while hydrologists are occupied with better understanding the atmospheric feedbacks and hydrological and water resource impacts of a changing atmosphere on the hydrological cycle and cryosphere, this call for attention and response to the science behind these changes is timely and needed in Canada.

Centre for Hydrology Director Professor John Pomeroy, and the work of CH staff and students during and since the Alberta floods of June 2013, provided the main focus of an extended piece on CBC TV’s The National, on Friday 27th September: the segment is available in full here.

The Calgary Herald of 23rd September has published an article describing the work of the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory (CRHO), which is being established and will be operated by Centre for Hydrology staff and students.

Persisting media interest in the wake of this summer’s floods in Canmore, Calgary and much of Southern Alberta has resulted in more requests for CH Director Prof. John Pomeroy’s input.

On Monday 16th September he participated in CBC Radio One’s The World at Six, talking about the floods themselves, and the additional challenges which non-stationarity – as a result of climate change – introduces to flood prediction.

He has also contributed to two articles in the High River Times;
9 September: Hydrologist warns of disastrous rain-on-snow flooding
16 September: Canadian flood mitigation projects possible solutions

Former Banff National Park Superintendent, Kevin van Tighem, has written a comprehensive article on the need for source water protection in the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River Basin and published it in the July edition of Alberta Views magazine.
The article reviews the pressures on watershed management from various land uses and from climate change in the context of recent research results from the Centre for Hydrology’s Marmot Creek Research Basin. It then recommends scientifically guided forest management in the headwaters to provide for greater water security.
Van Tighem attended a Biogeoscience Institute led short-course on Mountain Headwaters and Climate Change in July 2012 that included a component on Marmot Creek.
Marmot Creek Research Basin has celebrated 50+ years since its founding this year and also has sustained substantial change and loss of measurement stations as a result of the June floods . Van Tighem’s article was written before the floods and is particularly prescient on the need to protect mountain watersheds from fluvial erosion.