Flooding in New Brunswick under Near-to-Medium Term Regional Climate Change

圣约翰河（Wolastoq，在Maliseet）在过去五年里严重的春季洪水已经成为沿着许多社区的一个主要问题，每次花费数百万美元来修复房屋，道路，桥梁，农场和其他重要的社区和省级基础设施。我们预计，春季洪水的时间和强度将随着全球气候变化而增加。洪水状况的潜在变化将发生在雪和雪雨混合为主的集水区，特别是在河流流域的源头，过渡到完全以雨为主的系统。 这个为期5年的项目的初步目标是研究和验证最近三次洪水事件（即2008年，2018年和2019年）的生物物理性质，包括地形变化，天气的日常变化，蒸散水平，积雪动态和上游流域的土地覆盖变化。这项研究的结果将指导现有的土壤水含量和地表水流量和累积的细粒度估计的年度模型的修订，目的是估计2008-2019年地表水水平的日常变化。利用区域气候模式（即，RegCM 4）将用于评估沿着圣约翰河上游河网洪水的近中期（2019-2050年）影响。这项工作将有助于确定由于持续的全球气候变化而导致的局部到区域化的洪水脆弱性以及对圣约翰河上游沿着社区、基础设施和动植物栖息地的暴露。查尔斯·P博士A.布尔克将在新玩法大学（新玩法弗雷德里克顿）领导这项研究。拟议的研究将涉及一名博士生和两名硕士生的监督。

Severe spring flooding of the St. John River (Wolastoq, in Maliseet) in the past five years has become a major problem for many communities along the river, costing millions of dollars each time to repair damages to homes, roads, bridges, farms, and other important community and provincial infrastructure. We anticipate that the timing and intensity of spring flooding will increase with global climate change. Potential shifts in flooding regime will occur as snow- and snow-rain-mix dominated catchments, particularly in the headwaters of the river basin, transition to entirely rain-dominated systems. An initial aim of this 5-year project is to study and characterise the biophysical nature of three recent flooding events, namely those of 2008, 2018, and 2019, with respect to variable topography, day-to-day variation in weather, levels of evapotranspiration, snow cover dynamics, and landcover change in the upper river basin. Findings from this study will guide the revision of an existing landscape-level, annual model used to derive fine-grained estimates of soil water content and surface water flow and accumulation, with an intent to estimate the day-to-day variation in surface water levels from 2008-2019. The revised landscape model with climate input from a regional climate model (i.e., RegCM4) will serve in the assessment of the near-to-medium term (2019-2050) impact of flooding along the upper St. John River network. This work will help identify localised-to-regionalised flooding vulnerabilities and exposures to communities, infrastructure, and plant and animal habitat along the upper St. John River, as a result of continued global climate change. Dr. Charles P.-A. Bourque will lead the research at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, New Brunswick). The proposed research will involve the supervision of one doctoral and two master's students.