• Hydrology, Ecology and Disturbance in the Western Boreal Forest
• Oil Sands Reclamation of Functioning Wetland Ecosystems
• Subarctic Microclimatic Influences on Wetland Biogeochemistry
• Synoptic Climatology and Surface Interactions
• Ecohydrology in Temperate Multiple Landuse Catchments

Integrated research about the complex hydrology in the western forests and wetlands of Canada (both boreal and montane) is being conducted by an interdisciplinary group of 7 scientists from the University of Alberta and Wilfrid Laurier University. Research areas include hydrology, hydrogeology, meteorology, water resources engineering, forest hydrology, ecology, and biogeochemistry. Basic research into the hydrologic function of boreal forests and their surrounding wetlands will provide forestry companies with improved tools to limit hydrologic impacts of forest harvest activities, and will guide oil sands companies in their efforts to reclaim mining sites to functional ecosystems. (A more detailed summary is provided below).

The current research program is being conducted at research sites near Utikuma Lake, Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray in the boreal forest of Alberta. Financial support from forestry and oil and gas companies and NSERC are in place. Related projects are addressing the hydrology and hydrogeology of reclaimed oil sands sites.

The research program is actively soliciting graduate students at both the master’s (Masters of Science (MSc)) and doctoral levels to undertake a variety of field research and computer modelling projects starting over the next 4 years. General descriptions of proposed projects are below. If the nature of the integrated hydrological research in Alberta’s forests appeals to you, and if you have expertise in the areas mentioned above, please contact Dr. Richard Petrone for more information.

PROGRAM SUMMARY

Forest harvesting and oil sands development are major components of the Albertan and Canadian economies that have a large potential to impact the Western Boreal Forest (WBF). A fundamental understanding of the interaction of water and energy pathways and forest succession (primary or secondary) and hydrologic recovery is the cornerstone to developing best forestry management practices and to establishing design criteria and benchmarks to which successful reclamation efforts will be built.
Our research uses a combination of a) paired catchment forest harvest experiments at fine (10ha) and coarser (>10km2) scales, and b) hydrologic modelling to develop a management framework. This framework will be used to predict the influence of forest harvest practices and vegetation succession on water cycling as influenced by the geology and sub-humid climate of the WBF. We will develop landscape indices that provide information on an area’s response to particular disturbances and allow non-hydrologists to predict and assess the hydrologic impacts of forest management practices (FMP’s) on harvested sites and forest succession on reclaimed landscapes.
Specific deliverables of benefit to the Canadian forestry and oil sands industries arising from the project include:
1) new or refined landscape hydrologic models to describe the current and predict the future behaviour of existing and reclaimed landscapes characteristic of the Western Boreal Forest;
2) effective planning tools that can be used to develop rigorous and objective scientific criteria and recommendations for cumulative risk assessment of the hydrologic consequences of FMP at a given scale, and appropriate reclamation procedures and landscape configuration of oil sands leases; and
3) appropriate and defensible soil and hydrologic indicators for monitoring and assessing success of FMP and oil sands reclamation.
We anticipate that the management framework will allow results of our research to be applied to provincial water strategies and to serve as guidelines for integrated land managers at the provincial level. The framework can also be applied at the national scale, facilitating the transfer of research knowledge among different regions.

In the oil sands development areas near Fort McMurray, where peatlands comprise up to 65% of the landscape, most of which being fens, active mining occurs on over 250 km²and is expected to cover approximately 1400 km²by 2023 (Alberta Environment, 1999). Large tracts of undisturbed peatland are being removed in the process. This research will evaluate the reclamation of mined landscape to a fen and its watershed. Based on a conceptual design presented by Price et al. (2010) and a revegetation strategy guided by Rochefort et al. (2003), a construction plan has been created (Daly, 2009), commencing August 2010. However, fen creation is a new concept, and designing a fen and its watershed is an untested concept. Fen peatlands rely on ground- or surface water inflows to sustain the water balance and modify the water quality. The key to explaining the success of plant establishment and carbon exchanges within the system lies in understanding the hydrology and the associated transport of Na and NAs within and between constructed/natural upland areas and the constructed fen. The adequacy of recharged water for the fen is ultimately decided by its ability to sustain conditions wet enough to support fen-vegetation and suppress carbon loss. However, in the Western Boreal Plain annual water deficits exist most years, with wet years occurring on a 10 – 15 year cycle. Thus, the water budgets of wetlands here are dominated by vertical fluxes. The presence of persistent seasonal frost in these wetlands causes a perching of the water table that may be essential for sustaining an adequate level of wetness (Petrone et al., 2008). The role of this mechanism in fens is untested, and the ability of our reconstructed, revegetated fen to mimic natural systems is uncertain. We will document the process and if important, endeavour to promote it. Furthermore, the constructed landscapes will have differences in hydrology that will influence biogeochemical cycling and carbon dynamics, and therefore trace gas exchange.

The primary objective of this research initiative is to assess the controlling microclimatic factors on the CO2 gas source/sink strength of terrestrial ecosystems in the Canadian Subarctic so that we can predict its potential fate under a changing climate. The research proposed here focuses on CO2, CH4 and N20 only. Done in collaboration with Dr. M. English (Wilfrid Laurier University), Dr. L. Chasmer (Wilfrid Laurier University), Dr. M. Macrae (University of Waterloo) and Dr. C. Spence (Environment Canada). This project is funded by NSERC and the Northern Studies Training Program. I am currently seeking masters students to investigate the role of freeze-thaw cycles in the shoulder seasons (spring, fall) on CO2 exchange processes in the 2013 and 2014 field seasons; and the role of snow accumulation and ablation patterns in providing nutrient and trace gas hotspots. Interested students should have a undergraduate background in climatology and biogeochemistry.

A key aspect of much of my research is the interaction of the surface - atmosphere interface with larger scale climatic patterns, and controls. Much of this research will involve a synoptic climatological analysis of the Western Canadian Boreal Forest zone, and much of the Southern and Montane areas of Alberta, in addition to ground energy balance and ecohydrological research at similar sites throughout the province, to study the influence of large scale weather on the surface hydrological and biogeochemical regimes. I am also, looking at synoptic scale patterns in Southern Ontario in the non-summer months; specifically the conditions responsible for, the probability patterns of, freeze - thaw cycles. Especially in agricultural soils, these cycles have been found to be critical periods of trace gas emissions on an annual scale.

Much of this research involves: (1) studying basin-scale evapotranspiration in the establishment of an antecedent hydrologic index to predict the export of nutrients, (2) spatial variability in trace gas exchange, and (3) the effects of nutrient loading on the productivity of riparian zone wetlands. Done in collaboration with Dr. M.C. English (Wilfrid Laurier University), Dr. S. Schiff (University of Waterloo), Dr. M. Macrae (University of Waterloo), Dr. Rick Bourbonniere (Environment Canada) and Dr. C. Mitchell (University of Toronto). This research will be done under the Southern Ontario Watershed Consortium and will involve examining these processes as governed by the influence of urbanization and landuse change.