INTERNATIONAL
In November 2021, the Water Institute was honoured to participate in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, UK, hosting a side event entitled “Canada’s Peatlands as a Nature-based Solution to Climate Change” together with the Waterloo Climate Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Global Peatlands Initiative (GPI). COP 26 brought almost 200 countries together for 12 days of negotiations to accelerate action on climate change. The side event featured Maria Strack (professor, Geography and Environmental Management, Canada Research Chair in Ecosystem and Climate) and Fereidoun Rezenezhad (professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences) together with UNEP GPI, government, industry and civil society representatives who shared state-of-the-art Canadian peatland science and identified opportunities and challenges associated with a national assessment.
The UNEP-GPI is thrilled to be partnering with the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute, including on this COP 26 side event, in supporting knowledge exchange and actions aimed at effectively managing Canada’s huge peatland resource and preventing the loss of these carbon stocks.
DIANNA KOPANSKY, UNEP GPI Coordinator
Water security solutions for São Paulo, Brazil
In collaboration with the State of São Paulo Environment Agency, University of São Paulo and several other local partners, the Water Institute initiated a new interdisciplinary research project to identify new, innovative water management approaches that increase water security in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the five-year “SACRE: Integrated water solutions for resilient cities” project will develop new hydro-economic hybrid solutions to reduce the water vulnerability of urban and rural areas integrating engineering, management and nature-based techniques. The project will also advance the scientific knowledge of hydrobiogeochemistry, hydrology, hydrogeology and aquifer remediation in the state to support adaptive water management and governance instruments.
Besides the great advances to water science and environmental management, the project will develop concrete benefits for the management of water and natural resources in the cities and the rural areas of the State. The partnership with the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute represents a huge potential for cooperation with the Canadian Government and researchers - getting ready for new challenges.
MARCOS PENIDO, State Secretary, São Paulo Secretariat for Infrastructure and Environment
WORKING WITH OVER 20
LEADING WATER ORGANIZATIONS FROM ALL FIVE CONTINENTS
papers published by water institute members since 2009
global scholarly impact papers cited since 2009
Craig Janes (professor and director, School of Public Health Sciences) and Jennifer Liu (professor and chair, Anthropology) initiated a new, highly innovative project to investigate the impact of flooding on health services in Western Province, Zambia. The project, catalyzed by a Water Institute seed grant, will enable researchers to assess the impact of increasing variable seasonal flooding on access to and utilization of high priority health services, such as maternal health care and HIV prevention and care. It will also develop a dynamic socio-ecological system model scalable to regional and national levels. The team will also assess whether the Zambia-based methodology and models are relevant for other jurisdictions, including rural and remote communities in Canada.
One of the most exciting and promising aspects of this project is our exceptional interdisciplinary and international team, hailing from Zambia, the UK, Hong Kong, and Canada, and representing diverse disciplines — medicine, epidemiology, health services research, anthropology, geography, and ecology. This will be a complex project, but one that will be highly innovative and transformative in its approach to addressing the human costs of climate change.
CRAIG JANES, Professor and director, School of Public Health Sciences
Yucatan climate past informs the global climate present
A recent study by Marek Stastna (professor, Applied Mathematics) revealed that changes in tides and hurricane activity played a part in upending the Maya civilization centuries ago. By placing sensors in bodies of water throughout the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the research found that daily fluctuations in water levels and salination were impacted by ocean tides, even in lakes far inland. Given this new insight, it is quite likely that historic fluctuations in Maya population and settlement patterns were influenced by changes in sea levels or tidal activity that disrupted the availability of fresh water at sometimes distant locations. This work offers new insights on the effects of climate change for archaeologists, climate historians and present-day climatologists.
Recently Canadians have seen how climate change expresses itself with huge forest fires and floods in British Columbia. In the Yucatan Peninsula, climate change expresses itself through the underground water table. People shouldn’t be thinking about whether climate change is happening, but how it expresses itself in different places.
MAREK STASTNA, Professor, Applied Mathematics
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