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

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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.