Watershed Mapping and Monitoring for Northern Community Impact Assessment
Northern Canadian communities, like other communities in Canada, face numerous challenges in order to ensure access to safe and plentiful water supplies. There are several factors that make this responsibility different in the North. First, northern communities must rely on surface water for freshwater supplies, as there is no groundwater supplied via aquifers due to permafrost. Along with the storage of water in snow and glaciers, permafrost conditions locks in ground water which also contributes to a relatively low amount of water circulating in the hydrological cycle. Low annual precipitation in much of the Arctic also means that the North is essentially a cold desert. Rising consumption of freshwater is increasing due to growth of northern communities, and these realities could place additional strain on the limited resource of surface freshwater.
Goal:
The ultimate goal is to provide information about the sustainability of freshwater supplies through the precise determination of the catchment basin and the production of qualitative terrain information to be used for monitoring the supply and protecting the resource against contamination.
Methods:
Scientists are currently using high-resolution satellite data and new terrain elevation and water depth soundings. They are also constructing capacity models used to forecast both the supply and demand of freshwater. Capacity modelling of the natural water system incorporates measurements of both precipitation gains to the system such as rainfall, dew, snowfall and wind transport of snow into the system, as well as losses due to evaporation, transpiration, run-off, and wind transport of snow out of the system. It is also useful to construct a kind of water budget, which takes into account both external factors, such as changes in the local climate, and internal factors, such as changes in consumption rates over time.
Results:
This research will provide the appropriate departments and communities with some additional information regarding the state and sustainability of local freshwater resources including:
- Detailed elevation and bathymetry data,
- Reservoir volume and recharge rates,
- Definition of the watershed,
- Watershed land cover characteristics, and
- Image maps of the community for use in planning development
