Water-balance modelling in complex terrain: new approaches for Canada's northern lowland and Precambrian Shield regions

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The development of numerical hydrology models that produce "the right answers for the right reasons" is a hallmark goal of recent national and international efforts to improve hydrologic predictions in ungauged basins. In lowland and Precambrian Shield regions of Canada, dynamic water balance processes in the myriad of lakes and wetlands confound our ability to produce accurate descriptions of water stocks and flows across the landscape. As a result, existing numerical hydrology models do not adequately represent the spatio-temporal dynamics of water balance processes. This makes them unreliable for predicting future hydrologic and ecological processes within catchment systems that are potentially crossing unknown hydrologic thresholds due to cumulative impacts of landuse and climate change. The proposed research will involve a series of research projects involving field- and model based methods to investigate physical hydrological processes at three sites that are broadly representative of much of Canada's lowland and Precambrian Shield regions: a northern peatland complex in the James Bay Lowlands, near Attawapiskat, ON, the Hearst Forest surrounding Hearst, ON, and Gatineau Park, near Ottawa, ON. Field methods will include strategic hydrometric monitoring and detailed bathymetric mapping to accurately quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics of hydrologic stocks and flows within these regions. These data will be used in conjunction with airborne Light Detection and Ranging surveys to produce innovative, spatially-explicit numerical hydrology models for simulating the spatial distribution of water storage and runoff processes within mesoscale (10-1000 sq km) watersheds. This research will make fundamental contributions to water resource science in Canada by advancing our ability to accurately quantify the spatial distribution of water stocks and flows over large management districts. The work will also support priority research areas within the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources focussed on improving hydrologic risk assessment and management in resource based sectors throughout Ontario.