2022 Regional-Scale Groundwater Geoscience in Southern Ontario:
On February 15th Dr. Hazen Russell (researcher at the Geological Survey of Canada in sedimentology and a project lead in the Groundwater Geoscience Program) delivered a presentation about Canada 1 Water to the attendees of the 2022 Regional-Scale Groundwater Geoscience in Southern Ontario open-house.
Dr. Russell’s lecture - titled Canada 1 Water: A Collaborative Approach to an Integrated Groundwater-Surface-Water-Modelling Framework for Climate Change Adaptation - provides an early overview of ambitious Canada 1 Water (C1W) project.
Abstract:
Canada 1 Water is a three-year governmental multi-department–private-sector–academic collaboration to model the groundwater–surface water of Canada coupled with historic climate and climate scenario input. To address this challenge, continental Canada has been subdivided into 6 large watershed basins of approximately two million km2. Ontario forms part of three of these watershed basins: Nelson, Hudson, and Atlantic. The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River system forms the western part of the Atlantic watershed. The inclusion of the transboundary watersheds will provide further assessment of water resources in this critical international domain. In year one (2021–2022), data assembly and validation of some 20 data sets (layers) is the focus of work along with conceptual model development. To support analysis of the complete water balance under current and future climate, the modelling framework consists of three distinct components and modelling software. Land Surface modelling with the Community Land Model will provide information needed for both the regional climate modelling using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), and input to HydroGeoSphere for groundwater–surface water modelling. Modelling is also being integrated with Remote Sensing data sets, notably the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). GRACE supports regional-scale watershed analysis of total water flux. GRACE along with terrestrial time-series data will provide validation data sets for model results to ensure that the final project outputs are representative and reliable. The project has an active engagement and collaborative effort underway to try and maximize the long-term benefit of the data and modelling framework. Much of the supporting model data sets will be published under the Government of Canada open access license to support broad usage and integration.
Watch the presentation below, or…