Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Increasing demands on water resources across the Prairies in the context of flooding and economic growth demand innovative research to support optimized access to and allocation of quality and quantity of water. This research promotes science-?based strategic approaches for water resources management ? quality and quantity ? in rural and agricultural regions of the Canadian Prairies. The proposed program of research investigates water availability, allocation and treatment needs, rural and agricultural pressures on water consumption, and competition for water resources in the Canadian Prairies. The research focuses on the identification, evaluation, and field testing of approaches for watershed management and appropriate water treatment designs for a variety of applications, focusing on rural and agricultural communities. These will include analyses and scenarios such as: 1. incorporating elements of environmental change, focusing on climate extremes such as drought and flood, that are most commonly associated with water management and treatment challenges on the Prairies, 2. within the context of watershed management and water treatment, evaluating the increasing economic and landuse pressures that affect water quality and quantity in the Canadian Prairies, including but not limited to potash solution mining, intensive agriculture, and industrial development (particularly in oil and gas, including sour gas), 3. creating strategies for compiling and mitigating the cumulative impacts on water resources management of these changes and developments, including multi-use water management plans and source water monitoring, treatment, and allocation matrices, and 4. optimizing water treatment requirements for rural and agricultural communities in a design context for specific water quality challenges and fate and transport of nutrients, pesticides, metals, and pathogenic bacteria; climate extremes; competing water demand; and economic realities (no economy of scale).Challenges related to water quality and quantity at both the watershed, rural and agricultural community scale are addressed. To support enhanced economic and community resiliency, improved scientifically-based decision-making systems that demonstrate the economic, environmental, and human value of water resources management and water treatment needs in agricultural watersheds are vital. Risks will be identified, mitigated and managed through enhanced scientific data and engineering applications of water resource management techniques and technologies. Through laboratory and field experiments, integrating results, knowledge, techniques, and holistic problem solving through assessments of concurrent and cumulative impacts, and enhancing multi-use water resource management tools, the risks associated with economic growth dependent upon water resource consumption can be mitigated.