The potential for groundwater systems in the Rocky Mountains to buffer climate variability and change

发源于加拿大落基山脉的河流对草原各省下游社区的供水以及这些河流的水生生态系统至关重要。落基山脉河流具有很强的季节性，5-8月流量大，其余时间流量小。低流量的稳定性对于依赖地下水排放维持的基流的供水和水生生态系统尤为重要。预计气候变暖将改变积雪的规模，改变积雪融化的时间，并减少这些河流源头高山冰川的面积范围。然而，它对山区河流基流的影响很难预测，因为对水源集水区的地下水储存和释放机制还没有很好的了解。这造成了水文模型预测方面的重大知识差距，进而阻碍了草原省制定以科学为基础的水管理政策和指导方针的能力。拟议的项目旨在填补这一知识空白，并建立科学工具来模拟当前和未来条件下的河流基流。主要目标是综合过去15年积累的高山地下水的实地知识，开发相对简单的数学工具来表示高山含水层的储存能力，将新的数学工具纳入艾伯塔省政府使用的业务水文模型，并审查河流基流对气候变化的反应。该项目产生的知识将被艾伯塔省和其他草原省份的政府用来为其关于水资源管理和环境保护的政策决策提供信息。

Rivers originating in the Canadian Rocky Mountains are critically important for water supplies of downstream communities across the Prairie Provinces, and for the aquatic ecosystems of these rivers. The Rocky Mountain rivers have strong seasonality characterized by high flow during May-August and low flow during the rest of the year. The stability of low flow is particularly important for water supplies and the aquatic ecosystems that are dependent on the baseflow sustained by groundwater discharge. It is expected that climate warming will alter the magnitude of snow accumulation, shift the timing of snowmelt, and decrease the areal extent of alpine glaciers in the headwaters of these rivers. However, its effects on the baseflow of mountain reivers is difficult to predict, because groundwater storage and release mechanisms in headwater catchments have not been well understood. This presents a major knowledge gap for hydrological model prediction, which in turn hinders the Prairie Province's ability to develop science-based water management policies and guidelines. The proposed project aims to fill this knowledge gap and build scientific tools to simulate river baseflow under present and future conditions. The key objectives are to synthesize field-based knowledge of alpine groundwater accumulated over the past 15 years, develop relatively simple mathematical tools to represent the storage capacity of alpine aquifers, integrate the new mathematical tools in the operational hydrological model used by the Alberta Government, and examine the response of river baseflow to climatic variability. The knowledge generated from the project will be used by the governments of Alberta and other Prairie Provinces to inform their policy decisions regarding the water resource management and environmental protection.