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Towards a solution

This project has found a limited number of academic papers on the impacts of climate change conducted in the Hay and Slave River basins. Therefore, there are knowledge gaps for assessing climate change risk and impacts in these river basins. Nonetheless, this circumstance provides an opportunity to conduct more efficient research in these two basins framed around the RIM approach from the BWMA. This project also identified several research experiences in adjacent river basins and in the grey literature which provide valuable information on water resources for the Hay and Slave River basins. The results from this project’s systematic literature review, data analysis, and climate change risk assessment framework review and prototype tool development have led to compile a set of recommendations for future research in order to fill in the gaps of knowledge under BWMA:

  • Future research should be framed according to the learning plans and priorities established in the BWMA and the RIM approach. Other government guidelines such as 2030 NWT Climate Change Strategic Framework should also help define the scope of future research initiatives in climate change and water resources.

  • The SWAT model has been recently used for studying relevant river basins and the Government of Alberta has developed significant expertise in the use of this tool. Therefore, this model should be considered for future research of impacts in quality and quantity of surface and ground water in the transboundary region, under different climate change scenarios.

  • Permafrost thaw was found to be a relevant and frequently studied climatic hazard in the transboundary region. Specifically, the literature review showed that is an important factor that needs to be better understood. Future research should address its potential risks and impacts on water quantity, water quality and the aquatic ecosystems in the Hay and Slave basins.

  • The influence the dam located upstream of the Peace River must be considered in future climate change research when measuring hydrological impacts on downstream waters in Slave River basin. Some promising approaches for disentangling the effects of regulation and climate change have been proposed in the grey literature reviewed for this project (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, 2012).

  • Future research should identify, or create, specific indicators for climate change risk assessment for the Hay and Slave River basins to improve the monitoring processes of water resources and to integrate them in the climate change risk assessments of both basins. Examples of indicators are detailed in CCME 2013.

  • The risk assessment tool prototype developed for this project was applied to the most current papers from the final pool of the systematic literature review. Through it, the most common climate hazards and their impacts on water resources in adjacent river basins were identified. This information would be valuable to frame future research on climate change and water resources in the Hay and Slave River basins.