Understanding Water Budgets and Water Availability in Nova Scotia Watersheds

This NSERC Alliance Project is a partnership between Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Environment,and is focused on developing a better understanding of surface water resources in Nova Scotia, Canada. NovaScotia Environment is identified through the Environment Act as the lead agency of Government to promotesustainable management of water resources in the Province, and regulates activities that require approvals (e.g.,water withdrawals, watercourse alterations) through administration of the Activities Designation Regulations.The development of evidence-based polices and regulations is a key goal for the department; in the area ofwater resources management, accurate estimates of water availability within watersheds throughout theprovince is a key resource to support that goal.The objectives of this research project are to: (i) develop water budgets and water availability risk metrics forall major watersheds in Nova Scotia, and (ii) develop and validate tools for estimating water budgetcomponents in ungauged watersheds. The project will utilize a suite of approaches to accomplish theseobjectives, including calibration and validation of process-based hydrologic simulation models and field basedapproaches to measure component hydrologic processes (e.g., evapotranspiration, surface runoff andgroundwater flow). The results from this research will provide provincial water managers with valuableinformation to be used to more effectively support the assessment and development of improved watermanagement polices in Nova Scotia, and will be disseminated in a variety of formats to water resourcesprofessionals across Canada.