At least half the world’s population is dependent upon water from ‘cold regions’ where snow, ice and frozen soils drive water availability and quality. Cold regions are severely affected by climate change and human activity, resulting in dramatic rates of warming, changing water availability and unsustainable water use. The world is ill prepared for this unprecedented shift, which has already resulted in intensified floods and droughts, reduced water availability and degraded water quality, costing billions in economic loss and impacting the health of populations.
Addressing how to protect communities against these extreme water threats and consequent health risks in the face of climate uncertainty and human-induced global changes is one of the world’s grand challenges. A new science programme, “Global Water Futures: Solutions to Water Threats in an Era of Global Change” (GWF), is transforming the way communities, government, and industry prepare for and manage water-related risks in an era of unprecedented climate change. By 2023, GWF will deliver new scientific understanding, water data, monitoring technologies, and modeling tools to enable communities, industries and governments in Canada and the world to forecast, manage and make informed policy decisions in response to drought, flood, and water quality threats. Focussing on cold regions where climate warming is resulting in dramatic deglaciation, decline of snowpacks and permafrost thaw, we will provide evidence-based solutions to improve disaster warning, predict water futures, and forecast future climate impacts. This multi-faceted, integrated approach will bring real-world risk management technologies and preparedness solutions to a global economy dependent upon water for health, wealth, and livelihood.
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Dr John Pomeroy directs the Global Water Futures programme. He is the Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change, Distinguished Professor of Geography, Director of the Centre for Hydrology, Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory and the Coldwater Laboratory (Alberta) at the University of Saskatchewan, and an Institute Professor for the Biogeoscience Institute of the University of Calgary. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
Professor Pomeroy holds a PhD in Agricultural Engineering (1988) and BSc (Hons.) in Geography (1983) from the University of Saskatchewan. In the late 1980s through the 1990s he was a NATO Science Fellow at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, England; a Research Scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service in Wyoming, a Research Scientist and Project Leader at Environment Canada’s National Hydrology Research Institute and a member of the Division of Hydrology, University of Saskatchewan. He was the first Professor of Hydrology in Wales, where he was awarded a personal chair in 2001 by the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and where he was a member of the Aberystwyth Centre for Glaciology. He has won best paper awards from both the Eastern and Western Snow Conferences, research awards from the Governments of Canada and Japan and a teaching award from the University of Saskatchewan.
Professor Pomeroy has authored over 300 research articles, reports and books, conducted cold regions hydrology research in western and northern Canada, the United States, Bolivia, Spain, Russia, Wales, Scotland, Nepal, China, Chile and Japan. He has given many presentations throughout North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.