Young Innovators: U of S software helps predict floods and freshwater supplies

Federica Giannelli
Star Phoenix, September 13, 2020

“Predicting snowmelt in the mountain headwaters of the world’s major rivers is now vastly more accurate due to a new University of Saskatchewan computer simulation model that can improve forecasts of downstream river flow — an innovation that will improve water management in the face of a changing climate.

“Our software has predicted the high snowpacks that occurred in the Rockies this year and the low snowpacks of previous years — useful for forecasting floods and droughts,” said U of S post-doctoral fellow Chris Marsh, who developed the model as part of his PhD project supervised by hydrologists John Pomeroy and Howard Wheater.”

Read the full article here.

The article is also available here.

Author Leona Theis discusses Dr. Pomeroy’s contribution in this interview.

Excerpt:
A&S: What is the research process like for your books? For example, you collaborated with USask scientist and alumnus Dr. John Pomeroy (BSC’83, PHD’88) for part of your new book. 
LT: For each of Sylvie’s lives, I wanted to connect with the spirit of the year it was set in—1974, 1979, 1984, etc. To do this I watched news clips, movie clips, and music videos. For example, the OJ Simpson chase plays a role, real and metaphorical, in one chapter. I watched and rewatched videos of the chase to remind me of the public mood that day and the way people were so caught up in the chase itself, in a bizarre, voyeuristic way. Another form of “research” consisted of sifting in a concentrated way through my own memories associated with specific years.
In some of her lives, Sylvie seems slow to grow into the responsibilities of adulthood. I wanted her, in later chapters, to take a more mature approach and to make connections between her own choices and the larger world. When we encounter her in the final chapter, she’s a grandparent concerned about environmental degradation and, wanting to play some part for the better, she returns to school as a grad student. She earns a place working on a research project modelled on Dr. Pomeroy’s work at Fisera Ridge in Kananaskis Country…

By Shannon Boklaschuk
August 26, 2020

Read the article featuring classes offered by Dr. Nicholas Kinar and Dr. Martyn Clark here.

August 12, 2020

Congratulations to Dr. Carolyn Aubry-Wake, recipient of a Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement for the 2020-2021 academic year.

USask water and health researcher part of new national network studying sepsis

July 24, 2020
Chris Putnam, College of Arts & Science News

A researcher in the University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) College of Arts and Science is one of the collaborators on a new national network to study deadly blood infections.

On July 23, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced the creation of Sepsis Canada, a new research network that will improve the treatment of sepsis, a life-threatening condition that can result from infection.

Dr. Corinne Schuster-Wallace (PhD), a faculty member in the College of Arts and Science’s Department of Geography and Planning, is a co-investigator on the project. Dr. Joann Kawchuk (MD) of the USask College of Medicine is another co-investigator.

Read the full article here.

Trailbreaker with Loren McGinnis

Aired on CBCListen, July 21, 2020

“Last week, leaked emails revealed that Alberta suspended its water monitoring without notifying the NWT. That’s in violation of a bilateral water agreement signed by the Government of the Northwest Territories and the government of Alberta in 2015. Monitoring have been paused due to public-health concerns raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Hear the discussion between John Pomeroy and former NWT environment minister Michael Miltenberger here.

Read the related article, “Suspending water quality monitoring during pandemic a ‘serious oversight,’ says expert” from CBC News here.

Released On: 10 Jul 2020

Greta Thunberg describes the remarkable and tumultuous past year of her life on a BBC podcast. Hear her description of her visit to the Athabasca Glacier and discussions with John Pomeroy on chapter 6 (30:06).

Read the Time Magazine article: Six Months on a Planet in Crisis: Greta Thunberg’s Travel Diary from the U.S. to Davos, for a full transcription of the podcast here.

Jul 14, 2020
By USask Research Profile and Impact and Mark Ferguson

USask also placed in the top 100 universities in the world in three other research areas: environmental science/engineering (51-75th place), veterinary sciences (51-75th), and agricultural sciences (76-100th), according to the 2020 Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s ARWU, an influential ranking of 1,800 universities around the world based on research performance indicators such as publications, citation impact, and international collaboration.

“These results are a reflection of the outstanding research that takes place at the University of Saskatchewan as we strive to be the university the world needs,” said USask Vice-President Karen Chad.

“Particularly notable is the fact we are among global leaders in our signature areas of water and food security, as well as in fields such as environmental sciences and new materials research that involve synchrotron-based studies at our Canadian Light Source, Canada’s only synchrotron.”

Read the full article here.

Peiris: Every phase of $4B irrigation project must be done with careful planning

Star Phoenix, July 7, 2020

“The Saskatchewan government is going back to the future by resurrecting an irrigation scheme that was shelved a half-century ago, with plans to more than double the irrigated farm acreage over the next decade at a whopping cost of about $4 billion — the largest single project in provincial history.

Certainly, the attraction of tapping the full potential of the massive Lake Diefenbaker to ensure water and food security for Saskatchewan is undeniable, especially in an era when the need to mitigate impacts of climate change is clearly evident.”

Read the full article here.

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“The six-year Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Education (MECCE) partnership, led by USask College of Education professor Dr. Marcia McKenzie (PhD), is comprised of more than 80 prominent scholars and agencies in climate change and education. This includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and Germany are key partners…”

Read the full article here.