Determining Vulnerability and Resiliance of Fractured Aquifers to Pathogens: A Network-Based Approach

百分之三十三的加拿大人使用地下水作为饮用水。这一数字在农村地区上升到70%。地下水可能被病原体污染，使人生病，而这种情况更有可能发生在水储存在喀斯特或裂隙岩石中的地方。尽管加拿大超过三分之二的地下水储存在这些类型的岩层中，但加拿大地质调查局认为它们的行为是加拿大地下水知识最重要的空白之一。这些地下水储存（含水层）受到地质、水文、气候以及人类活动、政策和法规的影响。虽然有一些工具可以用来检查，例如，可以从含水层中抽出多少水，或者含水层对污染的脆弱性，但这些工具都没有充分结合影响含水层的所有因素之间的关系。因此，这些工具无法提供含水层动态的完整图像。考虑到有多少加拿大人和工业依赖地下水，我们缺乏对裂隙岩石中地下水的了解，以及我们不断变化的环境，迫切需要开发更好、更综合、更有效的地下水管理工具和策略。

Thirty-three percent of Canadians use groundwater for their drinking water. This number rises to 70% in rural areas. Groundwater can become contaminated by pathogens that make people sick, and this is more likely to occur where the water is stored in karst or fractured rock. Although more than two thirds of groundwater in Canada is stored in these types of rock formations, the Geological Survey of Canada identified their behaviour as one of the most significant groundwater knowledge gaps in Canada. These groundwater stores (aquifers) are influenced by geology, hydrology, and climate as well as human activities, policies, and regulations. Though tools exist for examining, for example, how much water can be taken out of an aquifer, or its vulnerability to pollution, none of these tools adequately incorporate the relationships between all of the factors that affect an aquifer. Consequently, these tools cannot provide a complete picture of aquifer behaviour. Given how many Canadians and industries rely on groundwater, our lack of knowledge of groundwater in fractured rock, and our changing environment, there is a critical need to develop better, integrated, more effective groundwater management tools and strategies. Network models provide an innovative and powerful approach to study and measure complex systems such as an aquifer. They are based on wiring diagrams that mathematically describe interactions (links) between the elements (nodes) that make up a network. This approach has emerged over the last 15 years because the digital revolution has enabled economical collection, organization, sharing, and storage of vast amounts of data. The goal of this research program is to use a network-based approach to establish the relationships (linkages) governing how and where particles (representing pathogens) move in fractured aquifers. These linkages will form the basis for an aquifer network model, which will be used to explore how multiple stresses, threats, hazards, and management scenarios affect potential aquifer contamination. This innovative network model will provide greater insight towards aquifer behaviour in order to provide practitioners with a better means to assess the vulnerability and resilience of fractured rock aquifers to pathogen contamination, the knowledge required for developing sustainable aquifer management plans, and the science needed to develop effective policy. Over the next five years, the proposed research program will train 3 Ph.D., 4 M.A.Sc. and 5 UG students. Ultimately, the long-term objective of the proposed research program is to develop a fully integrated understanding of fractured aquifer behaviour by using the theory of network science to investigate the connections within and between the physical, social, and political systems that collectively govern aquifer behaviour.