Recent Awards at Centre for Hydrology

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Best Presentation Award: The Western Snow Conference Best Paper Award was given to John Pomeroy, Matt MacDonald, Chris DeBeer and Tom Brown for their paper “Alpine Snow Hydrology in the Canadian Rocky Mountains” at the 77th Annual WSC in Canmore, Alberta 23 April 2009.

CGU Best Student Paper: The Canadian Geophysical Union Best Student Paper Award was given to Nicholas Kinar for the paper “Acoustic Observation of Snowpack Physical Properties” at the CGU-AGU Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, 27 May 2009

CAG Award: The Canadian Association of Geographers gave the CAG Award for the most outstanding students graduating in Geography honours/majors programmes at universities or colleges across Canada to Chris Marsh who graduated this spring and will be continuing as a MSc student in the Centre for Hydrology.

Congratulations to all of you on a job well done!

Province Awards $1.1 M for U of S Healthy River Ecosystem Research

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A University of Saskatchewan project led by Canada Research Chair Monique Dubé will receive $1.142 million from the Saskatchewan government’s Go Green Fund. The project known as THREATS (The Healthy River Ecosystem Assessment Tool System) will create a database of information to track changes in and help manage Canadian watersheds, including those in Saskatchewan. Dr. Westbrook from Centre for Hydrology is part of this project.

View the complete release here. Additional information on the THREATS research group is available at: http://threats.usask.ca

Province Awards $1.1 M for U of S Healthy River Ecosystem Research

Posted on by

A University of Saskatchewan project led by Canada Research Chair Monique Dubé will receive $1.142 million from the Saskatchewan government’s Go Green Fund. The project known as THREATS (The Healthy River Ecosystem Assessment Tool System) will create a database of information to track changes in and help manage Canadian watersheds, including those in Saskatchewan.
Dr. Westbrook from Centre for Hydrology is part of this project.
View the complete release here. Additional information on the THREATS research group is available at: http://threats.usask.ca

U of S Student wins AGU Award

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Congratulations to May Guan, MSc student in the Centre for Hydrology, for winning an Outsanding Student Paper Award for her presentation “Influence of Frozen Ground on Spatial Soil Moisture Patterns in a Subarctic Canadian Shield Landscape” at the 2008 Fall Meeting of the AGU (American Geophysical Union) in San Francisco this past December.

Congratulations May on a job well done!

In the News: Water Monitoring Network Flows

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By Mari-Louise Rowley – Rocky Mountain Outlook

Plans for an integrated hydrometeorological observation and prediction network focused on western Canada’s watersheds moved closer to reality as more than 80 delegates attended an international conference at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Centre in Canmore earlier this week.

Running Dec. 8-10, the Improving Water Security Through Integrated Observation and Prediction Networks conference drew top glaciologists, hydrologists and utility and government representatives from the U.S., France and across Canada.
“We’re all drinking from the same tap – the tap being the Canadian Rockies,” said John Pomeroy, University of Saskatchewan-based Canadian research chair in water resources and climate change. “Our water doesn’t stop in western Canada.”
Water that originates in the Rockies, from North America’s hydrological apex at Mount Snow Dome on the Columbia Icefields, eventually flows to three oceans, the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic, while water from Bow Lake, the headwaters of the Bow River, flows through Calgary and southern Alberta to eventually feed the South Saskatchewan River.
And the issues that are affecting the flows of fresh water all over the world – pollution threats from industry, overuse due to population growth and decreased flows due to the impacts of climate change – are equally pressing in western Canada, Pomeroy said. As such, establishing a network dedicated to collecting data, conducting research, and predicting future flows is an important undertaking, but a restricted one given the work currently underway.
Read the full article here.

U of S Student Wins Eastern Snow Conference Award in United States

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Nicholas Kinar, a PhD student with the Centre for Hydrology, won the Campbell Scientific Canada Award for Best Student Paper at the 65th Eastern Snow Conference in Fairlee, Vermont, USA. He won the award for his June 2008 presentation of his paper “Operational Techniques for Determining Snow Water Equivalent by Sound Propagation through Snow”. The Eastern Snow Conference is a US-Canada organization devoted to the study of snow and ice for hydrological and climatological purposes.

U of S Student wins D.M. Gray Award

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Congratulations to Gro Lilbaek, PhD student in the Centre for Hydrology, for winning the D.M.Gray Award from the Canadian Geophysical Union – Hydrology Section at the 2008 CGU Meeting for her paper Enhanced Infiltration Reduces Ion Load in Infiltration Excess Water during Snowmelt.
The DM Gray Award is the highest student prize awarded in Canadian Hydrology and is dedicated to the standards set by the late Professor Don Gray, Chairman of the University of Saskatchewan’s Division of Hydrology for over 35 years. The competition involves review of a submitted paper and oral presentation by a panel of hydrology experts.
Congratulations Gro on a job well done!

U of S Hydrology in the News

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Saskatchewan has always been known for its extreme weather and highly variable water supplies. Lately, however, the extremes have become more severe and less predictable.
In 2007, the spring snow melt set records in east central Saskatchewan, while a drought developed in the southwest. August was one of the coldest and wettest on record in parts of the province. Flooding destroyed homes and communities and ruined crops—if the intense heat in July hadn’t already burnt them. University of Saskatchewan hydrologist John Pomeroy is trying to decipher why this is happening and how we can best cope with the effect of climate change on water resources. “Saskatchewan agriculture is set up for extremes already, as every farmer has had to deal with drought or floods at various times,” says Pomeroy. “Our interest in climate change is in understanding how it causes these extreme variations in water supply and weather.” The Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change and director of the U of S Centre for Hydrology says his team’s work will help cities, farmers and industry plan and prepare for the effect of extreme weather on water resources.

Read the full article here.