RESEARCH THEMES

Climate change can significantly alter water availability for human and the environment.  Water-related impacts of climate change are more significant in colder regions, such as Canada, where the form of water availability over, above and under the landscape is also subject to change under warming temperature. This can further result in significant shifts in geological features, ecosystem functioning, infrastructure design and human utilization of water resources. The research in WSCC lab focuses on understanding climate change impacts on those elements of water cycle that have strategic importance for Quebec and Canada. Current active projects range from understanding changes in snow processes and frozen conditions to diagnosing alteration in characteristics of extreme rainfall and streamflow regime using state-of-the-art modeling tools and data.

We examine: 

• Changing Canadian snow processes
• Changing Canadian freeze and thaw patterns
• Changing Canadian streamflow regime
• Changing Canadian rainfall extremes and engineering design

During the current Anthropocene, natural hydrologic processes have been heavily perturbed by anthropogenic land and water management. These interactions form new coupled human-water systems, which constantly evolve in time and space, and are under increasing pressures due to changing climate and human activities. The research at WSCC lab contributes to better understanding of the potential vulnerabilities in human-water systems, and provides solutions for sustainable management of natural resources through building assessment frameworks that can handle the existing uncertainties in modeling and data support. 

We examine:

• Reservoir operation and its land atmospheric impacts
• Integrated modeling of water resources
• Water-energy-food nexus
• Water security and vulnerability assessment