News

The first annual meeting of the “Adaptive management of green stormwater infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from urban watersheds” project was held on Friday May 10, 2024, at the CIGI campus in uptown Waterloo. The aim of the annual meeting was to review the progress of the work completed over the last year, and exchange ideas about further integration among the different work packages, while deepening collaborations with the external partners.

Members of a University of Waterloo delegation, including Stephanie Slowinski, Research Biogeochemist in ERG, attended the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-4) in Ottawa from April 23 to 29. 

In a new paper published in Environmental Science: Advances, a team of ERG researchers unravels the biogeochemical processes responsible for the efficient removal of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in a stormwater management pond in the Greater Toronto Area. 

A new paper published in the journal Remote Sensing presents a thorough comparison of the performance of semi-empirical methods aimed at retrieving spatial and temporal distributions of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations in both the nearshore and offshore waters of the western part of Lake Ontario. 

Philippe Van Cappellen, professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Ecohydrology, has been appointed a  University Professor  by the University of Waterloo. This designation recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence. Van Cappellen is the first Earth and Environmental Sciences professor to receive this honour.

The Global Futures Observatories (GWFO) was launched officially today. The launch event included welcoming remarks from GWFO Director John Pomeroy and Terry Duguid, MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Representatives of the four core universities (Saskatchewan, Waterloo, Laurier, McMaster) and the Real-Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation Network (RAEON) gave overviews of their observatories and associated research facilities. Philippe Van Cappellen presented on behalf of the Waterloo GWFO team.

The week of April 14-19, 2024, Ecohydrology Research Group members present their research at the 2024 European Geosciences Union (EGU) Conference. This annual conference is held as a hybrid event, with the in-person session taking place in Vienna. The EGU General Assembly 2024 brings together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences.

Ecohydrology Research Group MSc student Ali Reza Shahvaran successfully defended his thesis on Friday, April 5, 2024. Ali Reza’s thesis is titled "Chlorophyll-a Mapping in Oligo-Mesotrophic Waters Using Remote Sensing Imagery: A Case Study of Western Lake Ontario."

The Water Institute organized a full day of activities to celebrate World Water Day 2024. The afternoon included a panel session to explore Waterloo’s legacy in developing approaches and tools for sustainable water management under the $78 million pan-Canadian Global Water Futures (GWF) program.

A one-day workshop entitled “Implementation of an Ensemble Watershed Modelling Framework to Support Adaptive Management in the Canadian side of the Lake Erie basin” was held on March 21 at the University of Toronto Scarborough.