Climate and Environmental Change

加拿大北部地区拥有约270万人口，其中包括约600个土著社区，是加拿大经济的重要贡献者。从历史上看，这一高度多样化的景观拥有安全和清洁的水资源，但气候和环境干扰的频率和严重程度迅速增加，正在威胁这些资源。随着我们的气候变暖，预计野火等一些干扰将变得更加严重，并通过与其他气候和环境干扰的相互作用产生前所未有的复合干扰。然而，我们对多种干扰如何相互作用影响加拿大北部清洁水供应的理解仍然是一个悬而未决的问题，并已被确定为国家研究重点。生态系统满足，生态水文界面，是众所周知的高度影响力的空间斑块在控制水质和水量，但非常敏感的干扰。从本质上讲，生态水文界面可能是“景观水龙头”，控制提供清洁的水在加拿大北部。然而，我们对控制水质的相互关联的物理和化学过程以及干扰如何改变这些过程的理解很差。加拿大气候与环境变化研究主席的拟议研究旨在通过提高我们对水质/水量，生态水文界面和气候变化时代环境干扰之间相互作用的基于过程的理解，揭示多种干扰如何影响水资源。为了做到这一点，普遍的北方污染物（例如，汞）、营养物和碳将沿着空间-温度（纬度）梯度在几个嵌套流域进行测量。这将作为从南部的混合硬木森林到北部的北方森林的气候变化的近似值。在较小的空间尺度上，控制污染物、营养物和碳从高地通过生态水文界面释放到地表沃茨的过程将在沿着梯度的关键地区确定。为了支持实地科学，将在尼皮辛大学建立汞和生态水文学研究实验室。通过解开管理水质的相互作用过程，我们将能够更好地适应和减轻复合干扰，以确保数百万加拿大人的水资源。

Canada's Boreal region is home to ~2.7 million people, including ~600 Indigenous communities, and is a significant contributor to Canada's economy. Historically, this highly diverse landscape has had secure and clean water resources but rapid increase in the frequency and severity of climatic and environmental disturbances are threatening these resources. As our climate warms, it is predicted that some disturbances, such as wildfires, will become more severe and create unprecedented compound disturbances through interactions with other climatic and environmental disturbances. However, our understanding of how multiple disturbances interact to impact the provision of clean water in Boreal Canada remains an unanswered question and has been identified as a national research priority. Where ecosystems meet, ecohydrological interfaces, are known to be highly influential spatial patches in controlling water quality and quantity but are very sensitive to disturbances. Essentially, ecohydrological interfaces are likely the "landscape taps" that control the provision of clean water in Boreal Canada. Yet, our understanding of the interlinked physical and chemical processes that govern water quality, and how disturbance alters these processes, from these taps is poor. The proposed research of the Canada Research Chair in Climate and Environmental Change aims to unravel how multiple disturbances impact water resources by improving our process-based understanding of the interactions between water quality/quantity, ecohydrological interfaces, and environmental disturbances in an era of climate change. To do this, prevalent northern contaminants (e.g., mercury), nutrients, and carbon will be measured in several nested watersheds along a space-for-temperature (latitude) gradient. This will act as an approximation of climate change from the Mixed Hardwood Forest in the south to the Boreal Forest in the north. At smaller spatial scales, the processes controlling the release of contaminants, nutrients, and carbon, from uplands through ecohydrological interfaces to surface waters will be determined at key areas along the gradient. To support the field-based science, the Mercury and Ecohydrology Research Laboratory will be established at Nipissing University. Through untangling the interacting processes that govern water quality, we will be better able to adapt and mitigate compounding disturbances to secure water resources for millions of Canadians.