LANDSCAPE OVERVIEW

Canadian prairie landscapes are facing two major issues: agricultural draining and ecosystem services tradeoffs.

AGRICULTURAL DRAINING

• Important climate adaptation strategy
• A governance issue that involves upstream/downstream and trans-boundary concerns
• A locus of conflict among user groups
• A driver of extensive hydrological change

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES TRADEOFFS

• Saskatchewan was built on farmers draining land to farm.
• There is a historic connection to drainage relating to:
  • Settlement
  • Farming
  • Can be beneficial for farmers in terms of increased crops and increased profits.
• We know that draining has impacts such as:
  • Destroys wetlands
  • Can cause flooding
  • Sediment exchange
  • Habitat destruction

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RESEARCH OBJECTIVES​

Domain of Interest

1. Develop new knowledge on how people govern agricultural water management
2. What creates conflict?
3. How are consensus or collaboration achieved?
4. Produce novel approaches to socio-hydrological modeling by linking social-ecological governance models with hydro-climate models for scenarios planning​

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RESEARCH

CATCHMENT CLASSIFICATION & MAPPING

BASIN-SCALE MODELING

SUB-SURFACE AND SURFACE FLOWS

FRAMEWORK FOR RULES-BASED MODELING

DATA FRAMEWORK FOR SYSTEM MODEL

WETLANDS ARE "GATE-KEEPERS" OF RUNOFF

LAND-USE & CLIMATE CHANGE INTERACTIONS ON BIODIVERSITY

ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS

POTENTIAL PARTNERS: 
​Agricultural industry, Watershed groups, Ducks Unlimited, Provincial water/environment agencies, ECCC