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

发展数字水文学模型，为“正确的原因产生正确的答案”，是最近国家和国际努力改善无资料流域的水文预测的一个标志性目标。在加拿大的低地和前寒武纪盾牌地区，无数湖泊和湿地中的动态水平衡过程扰乱了我们对整个景观中的水资源储备和流动的准确描述的能力。因此，现有的数值水文模型不能很好地反映水平衡过程的时空动态。这使得它们不能可靠地预测未来集水系统内的水文和生态过程，因为土地利用和气候变化的累积影响可能会超过未知的水文阈值。拟议的研究将涉及一系列研究项目，涉及现场和模型方法，以调查三个地点的物理水文过程，这三个地点广泛代表了加拿大大部分低地和前寒武纪盾牌地区：位于安大略省阿塔瓦皮斯卡特附近詹姆斯湾低地的北部泥炭地综合体，安大略省赫斯特周围的赫斯特森林，以及渥太华附近的加蒂诺公园。实地方法将包括战略水文监测和详细的水深测绘，以准确量化这些区域内水文储存和流动的时空动态。这些数据将与航空光探测和测距调查一起使用，以产生创新的、空间上明确的数值水文学模型，用于模拟中尺度(10-1000平方公里)流域内的水存储和径流过程的空间分布。这项研究将通过提高我们准确量化大型管理区的水资源储量和流量的空间分布的能力，为加拿大的水资源科学做出根本性贡献。这项工作还将支持安大略省自然资源部内的优先研究领域，重点是改善安大略省各地基于资源的部门的水文风险评估和管理。

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.