Urban Watershed Group Projects

Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation

The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (ICCA) is a national applied research centre that focuses on mobilizing practical and cost-effective solutions to address climate change and extreme weather events. To this end, the ICCA is an incubator of new adaptation ideas, conducting research, knowledge mobilization and promoting initiatives aimed at de-risking the negative impacts of a changing climate and extreme weather. One of ICCA’s concerns is a growing uninsurable housing market in Canada relative to sewer backup.
 
ICCA believes the advanced technology and features of the SafeSump system can be instrumental to mitigating basement flood potential.  I have one of the first prototypes of the SafeSump system installed in my home. I have interacted directly with the start-up founder. I view him as entrepreneurial and passionate, and have met other members of his team with whom I was similarly impressed.  I am also familiar with Greenland Consulting Engineers, and congratulate SafeSump Inc. on their choice to create a joint “SafeSump” venture with Greenland.
 
ICCA looks forward to a supportive relationship with SafeSump Inc. upon the larger scale availability of their much-needed technology.

Dr. Blair Feltmate
Head, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation
Faculty of Environment
University of Waterloo
October 6, 2016
 

Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA)

Check out this (Greenland) video of THREATS (an open-source cumulative effects assessment tool to help direct environmental management (industrial or other)) and/or planning of future projects. It enables the compiling and juxtaposition of public environmental data (including, but not limited to, wildlife use areas and environmental quality data) with on-site or "targeted" environmental data. For security, the provision to include data protected behind a firewall exists to enable analysis and comparison of potentially sensitive data in the context of other datasets. The goal here is to allow for predictive capability and in turn mitigate potential effects. Equally, this provides a capacity to enable retroactive assessment (investigation of cause) of observed changes. The ability to spatially interpret stressor/pathway/receptor data, and conduct analyses within the tool, while retaining data in its original database (secure) is what is truly unique here. Excited to see what can be achieved with this powerful platform in areas where it has already begun to be used!

Neal Tanna
Advisor, Monitoring and Risk Assessment
Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA)
November 3, 2017
 

University of Guelph

The reappearance of excessive nutrient loading in Lake Erie and the subsequent algae blooms is an extremely complex issue and is quite different in nature than the previous phosphorous loadings in the 1970s. Unlike the issue in the 1970s, there are far more sources adding nutrients to the late and these sources are diverse in nature ranging from rural to urban. In order to understand the nutrient loading, both in the temporal and spatial domains, more complex analytic and predictive tools are required in order to help policy make sound, science based, and defendable solutions.

The University of Guelph is uniquely positioned to help address the issues around Lake Erie with long standing core strengths in both the agricultural sector and the environmental field. In conjunction with our partner, Greenland Consulting Engineers, and their watershed evaluation tool (CANWET^TM), we believe that we have the engineering and technology to extrapolate CANWET^TM from the watershed level up to the lake basin level and provide decision-making support for the entire Lake Erie basin.

Hussein Abdullah, Ph.D., P. Eng.
Director, School of Engineering
University of Guelph
January, 26 2015