Overview

wrap-up video (3:43)

GWF met as a whole for the first time and has brought together a large and comprehensive transdisciplinary group of water researchers and stakeholders in water research who discussed progress in meeting the GWF Grand Challenge. This meeting was remarkable for being exceptionally comprehensive in the subjects represented, for the early and rapid progress shown, and for being hosted and co-organized by a First Nation, on its own territory.

Over 400 people attended from across Canada, and from UN, WCRP and Future Earth. The meeting included 160 presententations by academics, students, researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, policy makers, managers and communicators as well as a visit to Six Nations of the Grand River where researchers and community members engaged in land-based knowledge exchange activities. 

Special attention was paid to progress in:

  • international linkages for GWF,
  • regional and topical scientific advances in Canada,
  • co-creation of knowledge with First Nations
  • needs of Young Professionals and
  • integration of research needs and advances in understanding and technology on:
    • modelling and observations,
    • aquatic environment and ecosystems,
    • human-water interactions,
    • watershed management and disturbance, and
    • climate and extreme weather.

GWF would like to express our gratitude to the planning and organizing committee consisting of GWF members and volunteers from McMaster University, Six Nations of the Grand River and University of Saskatchewan. This event would not have been possible without their hard work - thank you!

Agenda

Presentations

Plenaries

The Global Energy and Water Exchanges project of the World Climate Research Programme - Jan Polcher

Great Lakes and Water Quality: A Regional Perspective - Nandita Basu & Philippe Van Cappellen

Knowledge Mobilization Workshop - KM Core Team

Session: Modelling and Observations - Part I

The MESH Model: Past, Present and Future - Bruce Davison

Regional modelling with a simple land surface model: the strengths, weaknesses and a novel implementation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model - Shervan Gharari

Status report on the Great Lakes Runoff Inter-comparison Project for Lake Erie (GRIP-E) - Juliane Mai

Integration of a slope-based lateral soil water algorithm into a dynamic vegetation model - Stéfan Sauer

Challenges in modelling Prairie hydrology under future climates - Kevin Shook

High-resolution hydrological forecasting of the June 2013 flood in the Canadian Rockies - Vincent Vionnet

Airborne Measurement of Seasonal Snow in Western Canada - Brian Menounos

GPM-IMERG Snowfall Estimates in Cold Mountainous Regions - Andre Bertoncini

Session: Human-Water Interactions

Source Water Protection Planning - Robert Patrick

Linking Water Governance in Lake Erie to External Economic, Social and Political Drivers - Rob de Loë

Towards co-creation: engaging indigenous youth in monitoring stream health - Patricia Chow-Fraser

How Narratives Influence Water Policy in the Saskatchewan River Basin - Hayley Carlson

The role of practitioners in Decision Support System (DSS) formulation - Zobia Jawed

Analyzing News Media Coverage in Extreme Environmental Events: The Key Role of Media in Human Adaptive behaviors toward water use - Mohammad Ghoreishi

Estimating the Economic Costs of Eutrophication in the Great Lakes Basin - Roy Brouwer

An Evaluation of Current and Future Water Allocation Strategies in the Saskatchewan River Basin - Leila Eamen

Session: Watershed Management and Disturbance

Groundwater Protection - Looking Deeper - Grant Ferguson

Boots on the Ground: Wolf Creek Research Basin - Tyler de Jong

Groundwater Flow and Permafrost Distribution at Wolf Creek, YT - Laura Lyon

Drivers of land cover change after large fire disturbance in boreal forests - Nicola Day

Forest growth dynamics in northwestern North America - Anastasia Sniderhan

Biogeochemical Asynchrony: Ecosystem Drivers of Concentration-Discharge Dynamics Across Temporal Scales - Kim Van Meter

Dominant glacial landforms in the lower Great Lakes region exhibit differences in soil chemistry and potential risk of phosphorus loss - Janina Plach

Controls of Nitrogen to Phosphorus Stoichiometry in a Canadian Prairie Watershed - Jian Liu

Plenaries

Towards a Sustainable Water Future: Shaping the next decade of global water research in the era of Anthropocene - Anik Bhaduri

Northern Canada - Jennifer Baltzer & Heidi Swanson

Mountain Waters: Change, Vulnerability and Opportunity - Sean Carey

Canadian Prairies - Colin Whitfield & Helen Baulch

Environmental Forensics: What is it and what can it do? - John Giesy

Session: Modelling and Observations - Part II

A Toolbox for Comprehensive, Efficient, and Robust Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis - Saman Razavi

An Automated Parameter Grouping Strategy for Efficient Sensitivity Analysis of Large-scale Hydrological Models - Razi Sheikholeslami

Model couplings to include river water temperature, overland and instream water-quality and river ice processes in the MESH modelling system - Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt

Pursuing reliable hourly nutrient predictions in cold regions through the coupling of CRHM to an extended version of WINTRA - Diogo Costa

Nitrate fluxes in agricultural catchments: spatio-temporal variations driven by flow pathways and transport mechanisms - Mahyar Shafii

A comparison of laboratory and field-based measurements of chlorophyll-a, turbidity, and dissolved organic carbon for agricultural surface waters in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada - Kiana Zolfaghari

Water resources management modelling for Integrated Water Resources Management within Canada’s large river basins - Andrew Slaughter

Integrated Water Resources Management of the Saskatchewan River Basin using WEAP - Kasra Keshavarz

Session: Aquatic Environment and Ecosystems

Understanding and Rehabilitating Damaged Riverine Ecosystems - Jack Imhof

Approaches to understanding the fate of mercury in aquatic ecosystems - Karen Kidd

The Importance of Better Predicting Short- and Long-Term Water Quality Changes to Ensure Robust Drinking Water Treatment - Peter Huck

Improving estimates of phosphorus loads from tile-drained landscapes using Kriging techniques - Mazda Kompanizare

Longer summers drive multiple cyanobacterial blooms on lake 227 - Megan Larsen

Modeling the response of fish to major infrastructure upgrades in wastewater treatment plants - Mark Servos

Sensor Biofouling: Impact and Solutions - Charles-François de Lannoy

DNA-based biosensors for metal detection - Juewen Liu

Session: Climate and Extremes

The Impacts of Extreme Precipitation Events on the Insurance Industry - Laura Twidle

Probability of compound extreme precipitation events to inform engineering design - Mohamed Ali Ben Alaya

Continental Scale Convection-permitting WRF regional climate simulation over western Canada - Zhenhua Li

Cascade of uncertainty in CMIP5 climate projections for scenario-led water resource impact assessments in major river basins of Canada - Elvis Asong

Meteorological factors and icing on structures - Julie Thériault

Impact of atmospheric circulation on streamflow in Southern Ontario - Oliver Champagne

Synthesis of carbon fluxes sensitivities to heat and drought impacts in North America forests - Bing Xu

Convective precipitation initiation over the leeside of the Canadian Rockies - Lucia Scaff

MJO and ENSO on Growing Season Precipitation over the Canadian Prairies - Zhenhua Li

Photographs

Nearly 90 GWF Young Professionals (YP) attended a professional development workshop hosted by Jeff McDonnell from the University of Saskatchewan to kick off the GWF ASM.
John Pomeroy introduces the lead investigators of GWF-funded projects at The Gathering Place on the Grand, Six Nations of the Grand River.
Ravi Selvaganapathy talks to community members and researchers about his research being conducted at Six Nations of the Grand River.
96 posters were on display for attendees to view throughout the ASM.
Undergraduate student Denea Cheecham-Uhrich wore face-paint as part of her research that represented bringing western and indigenous knowledge together to work towards a better water future.
Tracy Nadon, Indigenous Undergraduate Summer Research Scholar at McMaster from Wahgoshig First Nation, helps guide ASM attendees to various land-based knowledge exchange activities.