Holly  Annand

    Holly  Annand

    PhD, Geography and Planning, University of Saskatchewan (Supervisors: John Pomeroy & Howard Wheater)

    Thesis: Changing Prairie Hydrology: Modelling the Influence of Climate Change and Wetland Drainage


    A modeling approach will be used to simulate the hydrological responses of prairie basins to different climate and wetland drainage scenarios. The Prairie Hydrological Model (PHM) configuration of the Cold Regions Hydrological Modeling platform (CRHM) will be used in this study; along with the Wetland DEM Ponding Model (WDPM), the Pothole Cascade Model (PCM) and various other statistics and GIS mapping software programs. Three sites will be investigated and hydrological models of each basin will be created: Smith Creek, near Yorkton, Saskatchewan; Camrose Creek, near Camrose, Alberta: and Broughton’s Creek, near Brandon, Manitoba. These sites are expected to provide a range of physiographic characteristics representative of watersheds across the PPR. They offer a wide range of topographies, wetland topologies, and land uses (although primarily agricultural) and will build understanding around the influence of such factors on basin responses to extreme climate events. Historical and future climate scenarios will be simulated in each basin. At first, wetland configurations will be held constant in each basin to highlight the influence of changing climate on basin responses. Next, wetland drainage scenarios will be generated and changed over the course of multiple model simulations to show the impact of wetland drainage on basin responses. Finally, strategic wetland management scenarios will be designed for a few sub-basins in a way that preserves agricultural land and mitigates downstream flooding impacts. Across all model runs, the results will be compared in the context of predictive uncertainty and the interplay of climate and wetland drainage will be discussed.

    Publication


    Town, J., Annand, H., Pratt, D., Dumonceaux, T., and Fonstad, T. (2014). Microbial community composition is consistent across anaerobic digesters processing wheat-based fuel ethanol waste streams. Bioresource Technology. 157: 127-133

    Awards & Scholarships


    APEGS member Education Grant 2016