The Water Institute - Baseflow trends across Canada: The impact of climate change
“Precipitation was an important predictor of water availability, while temperature’s relationship to baseflow depended on the season and location. In some regions, including southwest Canada and southern Northwest Territories, baseflow decreased due to an overall drier climate.”
Click here to read the article on The Water Institute website
The Water Institute is a leading global organization focused on water resources research and education. Founded in 2009 at the University of Waterloo, the institute continues to promote the groundbreaking research of it’s interdisciplinary membership, with contributions from nearly 500 faculty members and students across all six of the University of Waterloo’s faculties.
This recent article in the institute’s newsletter - WaterResearch - highlights a statistical analysis of baseflow trends to streams and rivers across Canada, an analysis performed by Julian Murray and Andrea Brookfield (Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences) and Jessi Ayers (Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley).
With data from 1,275 Water Survey of Canada streamflow gauges for a period of 30 years (1989-2009), these researchers employed several statistical analysis to elucidate the impact of climate change (precipitation, temperature and antecedent soil moisture) on groundwater baseflow to streams and rivers across Canada.
Click here to read the article on The Water Institute website
Figure 3: Seasonal overview of the relationship between monthly baseflow and monthly climate predictors (precipitation, antecedent wetness, and temperature). Blue (red) circles represent sites with a positive (negative) relationship between baseflow and that climate predictor, white circles indicate sites in which model selection was run but the climate predictor was not selected as a covariate in the model formulation.
“Study limitations included a lack of northern streamflow and weather station coverage which prevented a thorough interpretation of trends and climatic drivers in that region. In addition, predictors such as evapotranspiration and snowmelt were only assessed indirectly through temperature due to a lack of data. Future studies might further investigate the impact of human activities on baseflow.”