Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Canada's coastal regions, lake shores, and river valleys have evolved with time to form the landscapes on which Canada has built its towns and cities. We have also created our own soil slopes to form our transportation networks, to provide flood protection, to manage our water resources, and to protect our environment from the waste products of our resource industries. Climate change poses a significant risk to these vital components of our natural and built environment. Climate change is expected to increase both the total amount of precipitation and the frequency and severity of extreme rainfall events in Canada. With a strong relationship between weather events and slope instability, climate change has the potential to have drastic effects on the soil slopes of our natural and built environment. However, significant questions remain regarding the exact nature of these effects including: a) Will higher rainfall intensity make landslides more catastrophic in addition to more frequent? b) Will more severe seasons significantly accelerate rates of seasonal damage in clay slopes? c) How will more severe seasons affect Canada's permafrost slopes? And finally, d) What are the best monitoring tools for observing the warning signs of future slope instability? The objective of this research program is to produce the knowledge, highly qualified graduates, and practical tools that will help answer these questions and better manage the risk posed by climate change on the soil slopes of Canada's natural and built environment. Through this research program, 9 HQP (4 at the PhD level, 5 at the MSc level) will be trained in the technical knowledge and professional skills-sets in high demand by Canada's strong engineering services industry.