Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The proposed project will use innovative methods to develop a 600 year (1500 to 2100 A.D.) record of the hydroclimate of the North Saskatchewan River basin above Edmonton, Alberta. This database and our interpretation of the hydrological cycles and their causes will assist our industrial partner, EPCOR Water Services Inc., with preparation for the impacts of climate change on water supplies. The major risk from climate warming in Canada's western interior is a change in the availability of water resources, including the timing of supplies and distribution among basins. The dramatic retreat of glaciers from the Rocky Mountains reflects the earlier loss of the annual snowpack that is the main source of runoff in western Canada. Demandfor water resources is expected to rise significantly with growth in population and economic activity, and increased water loss by evapotranspiration. Scientists have projected mean states of future climate and surface water supplies, but there remains a critical research and knowledge gap: the characteristics and causes of short-term variability in surface water balances and the adaptation to resource management practices that will be required to sustain water use, allocation and apportionment under a changed hydrologic regime. The proposed strategic project addresses this knowledge gap by modeling past, recent and future flows of the North Saskatchewan River using methods that capture the natural short-term variability that will underlie the trend imposed by global warming. Wet and dry cycles have significant implications for the management of land and water resources. A better understanding of the impacts of climate change will require scenarios of future hydrologic variability, and of the path that climate and hydrology will take from present to future conditions as water balances cycle above and below trends in mean conditions. This project represents a major opportunity for the industrial partner to collaborate with researchers, in the early and less costly stages of adaptation to climate change, and to generate new scientific information that can influence decision making about planned adaptation.