Cold frontier in hydrogeology: Interaction of groundwater with alpine streams, frozen soil, and permafrost

地下水是水文循环的重要组成部分。雨水、融雪和冰川融水在排入河流、湖泊和湿地等地表水系统之前，会暂时储存在地下含水层中。地下水在世界许多地方广泛用于市政、工业和农业供水。在加拿大西部的半干旱地区，由于地表水供应有限，预计对地下水的依赖将加剧。除了为人类提供用水外，地下水的储存和延迟释放还提供了河流的基流，并作为降水输入的短期和长期变化的缓冲。尽管地下水很重要，但对寒冷环境中地下水过程的科学认识远不如温暖地区的科学认识先进。这项研究计划的总体目标是促进我们对寒冷环境中地下水的理解，这些环境受到雪，冻土，冰川和永久冻土的强烈影响。该研究计划由三个项目组成，每个项目都解决了现有科学知识的一个主要空白; 1）高山地区的地下水，2）涉及冻土渗透的地下水补给，以及3）地下水与永久冻土的相互作用。所有这三个项目都非常重视地下水过程的实地观察以及将小规模过程与大规模流域行为联系起来的数学和数值模型的开发。在这项研究中开发的地下水过程和数值工具的理解是高度相关的可持续水资源管理在寒冷地区。例如，高山地下水研究将为基流期的供水规划提供关键信息，基流期涵盖一年中的9至10个月。阿尔伯塔政府将使用项目2中开发的地下水补给模型制定水政策和分配地下水开采许可证。了解未来河流流量在不连续的永久冻土盆地将是至关重要的，为未来的石油和天然气资源的开发，在西北地区和北方阿尔伯塔和不列颠哥伦比亚省的不连续的永久冻土地区的水的可用性估计。

Groundwater is an essential component of the hydrologic cycle. Rain, snowmelt, and glacier melt water are temporarily stored in underground aquifers before they discharge to surface water systems such as rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Groundwater is used extensively for municipal, industrial, and agricultural water supplies in many parts of the world. The reliance of groundwater is expected to intensify in the semi-arid regions of western Canada, where surface water supply is limited. In addition to supplying water to human use, the storage and delayed release of groundwater provides baseflow in streams and serves as a buffer for short- and long-term variability in precipitation inputs. Despite the importance of groundwater, scientific understanding of groundwater processes in cold environments is far less advanced than those in warmer regions. The overall goal of this research program is to advance our understanding of groundwater in cold environments that are strongly influenced by snow, frozen soil, glacier, and permafrost. The research program consists of three projects, each addressing a major gap in existing scientific knowledge; 1) groundwater in alpine regions, 2) groundwater recharge involving infiltration through frozen soil, and 3) interaction of groundwater with permafrost. All three projects have a strong emphasis on the field observation of groundwater processes and the development of mathematical and numerical models that link small-scale processes with large-scale behavior of watersheds. Improved understanding of groundwater processes and numerical tools developed in this study are highly relevant to sustainable water resource management in cold regions. For example, the alpine groundwater study will provide the key information for water supply planning during baseflow periods, which covers 9 to 10 months of the year. Groundwater recharge model developed in Project 2 will be used by the Government of Alberta for water policy development and groundwater extraction license allocation. Understanding of future river flow in discontinuous permafrost basins will be critical for estimating the water availability for future development of oil and gas resources in the discontinuous permafrost regions of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta and British Columbia.