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，暂时储存在地下蓄水层中。在世界上许多地方，地下水被广泛用于市政、工业和农业供水。在地表水供应有限的加拿大西部半干旱地区，对地下水的依赖预计会加剧。除了供水供人类使用外，地下水的储存和延迟释放还为河流提供基流，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远不如温暖地区。这项研究计划的总体目标是促进我们对受雪、冻土、冰川和永久冻土强烈影响的寒冷环境中的地下水的理解。该研究计划由三个项目组成，每个项目解决现有科学知识的主要空白；1)高寒地区地下水，2)地下水通过冻土入渗补给，3)地下水与多年冻土的相互作用。所有三个项目都非常强调实地观察地下水过程和发展数学和数值模式，将小规模过程与流域的大规模行为联系起来。对地下水过程的进一步认识和研究中开发的数值工具对寒区水资源的可持续管理具有重要意义。例如，高寒地下水研究将为一年9至10个月的基流期供水规划提供关键信息。项目2开发的地下水补给模型将被艾伯塔省政府用于制定水政策和分配地下水开采许可证。了解断续冻土盆地未来的河流流量对于估计西北地区、阿尔伯塔省北部和不列颠哥伦比亚省断续冻土地区未来油气资源开发的水资源可用性至关重要。

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.