Understanding Water Budgets and Water Availability in Nova Scotia Watersheds _x000d_

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. Nova

Scotia Environment is identified through the Environment Act as the lead agency of Government to promote

sustainable 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 of

water resources management, accurate estimates of water availability within watersheds throughout the

province 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 for

all major watersheds in Nova Scotia, and (ii) develop and validate tools for estimating water budget

components in ungauged watersheds. The project will utilize a suite of approaches to accomplish these

objectives, including calibration and validation of process-based hydrologic simulation models and field based

approaches to measure component hydrologic processes (e.g., evapotranspiration, surface runoff and

groundwater flow). The results from this research will provide provincial water managers with valuable

information to be used to more effectively support the assessment and development of improved water

management polices in Nova Scotia, and will be disseminated in a variety of formats to water resources

professionals across Canada.