Changing water quality and quantity: impacts of human activities on water resources in Western North America

有强有力的证据表明，上个世纪全球气温的迅速上升是由于与人类活动有关的温室气体的空前增加。目前还不太确定这些全球变化将如何影响区域温度、水文气候和水生生态系统。使这种不确定性更加复杂的是，人们对气温升高和营养物质富集之间的协同作用知之甚少，正如我的研究所显示的那样，人类活动甚至在远离人类居住的地区也造成了这种协同作用。了解气候变暖与营养物质的协同作用至关重要，因为它可能对未来的水量和水质产生显著影响。因此，我的研究计划旨在通过利用高山和北部湖泊沉积物来促进我们对变化的水文气候和营养物质富集的了解。本项目包括三个研究主题：1)加拿大南部落基山脉两个流域源头的全新世水文气候变化在几个时间尺度上的变化；2)近100年来气候变化和大气氮污染对高寒和北部湖泊的影响；3)利用硅藻乳白硅氧同位素测量高寒湖泊的古温度。地理目标位于从加拿大西北地区北部北方森林到美国西部山间高山地区的广阔横断面上。这项研究将由我在过去两年中在西安大略大学开发的新装备的湖泊和水库系统研究设施（LARSRF）的分析设施提供支持。该设施拥有各种最先进的设备，用于记录和评估自然和人为对水资源的影响。考虑到我70%的研究工作与我的NSERC-UFA职位、LARSRF设施的卓越性以及我在招聘和培训HQP方面的成功记录，在描述的时间框架内，完全实现拟议的研究目标是合理的。我提出的研究计划将继续并促进合作，跨学科的方法来分析湖泊环境，这是我工作的特点。

There is strong evidence that the rapid rise in global temperatures over the last century is due to the unprecedented increase in greenhouse gases related to human activities. It is less certain how these global changes will affect regional temperature, hydroclimates and aquatic ecosystems. Compounding this uncertainty is the poorly understood synergy of warming temperatures and nutrient enrichment, which results from human activities even, as my research is showing, in areas remote from human occupation. Understanding the climate warming-nutrient synergy is critical as it may have a marked impact on future water quantity and quality. My research program is, therefore, designed to contribute to our knowledge of changing hydroclimates and nutrient enrichment utilizing alpine and northern lake sediments. This program consists of three research themes: 1) Holocene hydroclimate variability at several timescales in the headwater reaches of two drainages in the southern Canadian Rockies; 2) Impacts of climate change and atmospheric nitrogen pollution on remote alpine and northern lakes over the last ca. 100 years, and 3) New paleotemperature measurements of alpine lakes using oxygen isotopes in diatom opaline silica. The geographic targets lie along a broad transect from the northern boreal forest of the Canadian Northwest Territories to alpine regions of the US Intermountain West. This research will be supported by the analytical facilities of the newly equipped Lake and Reservoir System Research Facility (LARSRF) that I have developed at the University of Western Ontario over the last two years. This facility hosts a wide range of state-of-the-art equipment to document and evaluate natural and anthropogenic impacts on water resources. The full achievement of the proposed research goals is reasonable in the timeframe described given my 70% research effort associated with my NSERC-UFA position, the excellence of the LARSRF facilities and my successful track record of recruiting and training HQP. My proposed research program will continue and promote the collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to the analyses of lake environments that has characterized my work.