The lack of a rigorous understanding of the cycling of water in these terrains, poses a major obstacle to the development of a physically meaningful, meso scale hydrological model for the Mackenzie River basin, one of the world's largest northern basins. This research examines the major processes controlling the storage and cycling of water in wetland-dominated basins of the central Mackenzie basin, using hydrometric and geochemical techniques, and mathematical modelling. High resolution satellite imagery is also used to develop new algorithms and parameterization schemes for a hydrologically-based land-cover classification were developed. Collaborators include Drs. M. Hayashi (University of Calgary), G. Vanderkamp (National Water Research Institute).