The Ontario government is investing $540,000 in a three-year research agreement with the University of Waterloo aimed at helping communities prepare for flooding.
The Collaborative Research Agreement will use hydrologic modelling tools to inform water management decisions and infrastructure planning. The province says it will give municipalities, conservation authorities and local dam operators better information to prepare for floods and optimize dam operations.
“We are taking proactive steps to be better prepared, so that when flooding happens, we can reduce its impacts,” said Natural Resources Minister Mike Harris. “By funding collaborative research projects with academic partners like the University of Waterloo, our government is ensuring we have the best and most up-to-date information to keep people and property safe.”
The agreement builds on a previous four-year, $494,500 agreement that produced the Ontario Hydrologic Modelling System, the Ontario Hydrologic Atlas, the Streamflow Alteration Index and the Ontario Lake and River Routing Product. The province says those tools will be made publicly available to municipalities, conservation authorities, consultants and water managers.
Bryan Tolson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the university, said better models and forecasts can give communities more time to prepare.
“Better models and improved forecasts of floods can give communities more time to prepare and help the province manage its dams to balance competing demands on Ontario’s rivers and lakes,” Tolson said. “The project also gives our graduate students direct experience working alongside ministry scientists on real water resources applications and water management problems.”
As part of the agreement, the province is working with the District Municipality of Muskoka and university researchers on modelling tailored to that watershed.
The province says it invests more than $5 million a year in a flood forecasting and warning network. It is funding 21 active collaborative research agreements with universities, totalling more than $2.8 million.
