Fire in the Arctic: The interactive effects of landscape, hydrology, and permafrost change on aquatic ecosystem health

This project is addressing two of the major POLAR Canada research priorities as follows:1) Predicting the impacts of change on communities, ecosystems and infrastructure: The proposed research and monitoring effort will specifically assess how changes within landscapes brought about by fire affect aquatic ecosystem health, and is designed to enable an understanding of how the effects of fire scale to larger landscapes. Thus, this work will directly increase our understanding of the impacts of change (fire) on northern ecosystems. As a secondary outcome, this work will also provide baseline data to help understand how permafrost thaw affects water quality and stream ecosystems. The information we generate will be of interest to communities, via increased understanding of fire-induced changes to water quality and aquatic organisms (e.g., fish), and has implications for infrastructure such as water treatment and transportation network resilience. 2) Baseline information preparedness for development: Through its scaling and paired catchment approach, this work will also provide important baseline information for future developments in the Northwest Territories (NWT). This research will occur in two regions that are central to resource development in the NWT: our target watersheds within the Taiga Shield ecoregion are within the mineral-rich Slave Geological Province, while our target watersheds within the Taiga Plains ecoregion lie directly along the proposed and existing route of the oil and gas pipelines. The streamflow and aquatic chemistry data collected by this research and monitoring will provide key baseline information that will inform engineering design and environmental assessment by industry and government regulators. The information produced will also be used to improve reclamation decisions at abandoned mines (e.g., the Giant Mine near Baker Creek).