PhD position on evaporation and droughts in eastern Canada
Laval University
Université Laval (UL) is the oldest French-speaking university in North America. It is home to some 47,000 students in 17 faculties, 60 departments and schools, and nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate programs in all fields of knowledge. Université Laval offers strong graduate programs in water research. Although it is a French-speaking university, it is very common to complete graduate studies in English.
Homepage: https://www.ulaval.ca/en
Climate: Past, Present & Future (CL)
Hydrological Sciences (HS)
Despite its reputation for a cold, wet climate, Quebec in eastern Canada is likely to experience more frequent and intense droughts in the future. This will have significant consequences for the environment, the economy and human health. Droughts are caused by a lack of precipitation and are exacerbated by evaporation, which dries out the soil and leads to low river flows in summer. In a context of probable water resource scarcity and increasing demand, it is crucial to accurately understand the quantities of water available. This project, conducted in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MEFCCWP), aims to improve our understanding of the role of evaporation in amplifying droughts in Quebec, an issue that has been poorly documented to date.
This PhD project aims to model the evolution of evaporation and drought in various bioclimatic domains, mainly forests, in southern Quebec, in the context of a changing climate. We will use the Canadian surface model CLASSIC, which simulates interactions between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. We will have previously parameterised this model for the context of eastern Canada, notably thanks to our experimental sites in the boreal forest. With this model, we will study drought episodes in recent and future climates to characterise their amplitude, frequency and duration, and thus understand their causes. This research project is at the crossroads of several disciplines related to water (hydrology, hydrometeorology), atmosphere (micrometeorology, climatology) and biosphere (forestry), and will combine the advancement of knowledge with practical benefits for water resource managers. Specifically, the project will propose improvements to evaporation calculations leading to low water flows in the future climate of the Hydroclimatic Atlas of Southern Quebec. This operational tool, supported by various research projects, enables climate change to be considered when assessing water availability and withdrawals.
Please email Prof. Daniel Nadeau (daniel.nadeau@gci.ulaval.ca) and Prof. François Anctil (francois.anctil@gci.ulaval.ca) with your CV, a short cover letter, examples of previous research (M.Sc. thesis or published articles), and the names of two references.