People
Andrew Ireson
andrew.ireson@usask.caAssociate professor, SENS
Director of the MWS program
President of the Canadian Geophysical Union
Joint appointment CGE
Research Interests
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Unsaturated flow and transport
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Physics of frozen soils
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Groundwater surface water interactions
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Physically based modelling
See publications
Seth maintains our field site at St Denis, SK, where we monitor soil moisture, frozen soils, evaporation fluxes, precipitation, groundwater levels, pond levels and chemistry. St Denis has been running since 1967, and has a long term, high quality record of hydrological change in the prairie pothole region. See an overview of the site here
Seth formerly completed an MES, looking at the role of solutes on the soil freezing characteristic curve. See his publication on this work here: Amankwah, S. K., Ireson, A. M., Maulé, C., Brannen, R., & Mathias, S. A. (2021) A Model for the Soil Freezing Characteristic Curve That Represents the Dominant Role of Salt Exclusion. Water Resources Research, 57(8), e2021WR030070 doi: 10.1029/2021WR030070
Mennatullah Elrashidy
menna.elrashidy@usask.caPhD student: Modelling groundwater-surface water interactions
Education:
- Currently: PhD student, Civil Engineering, University of Saskatchewan.
- Master of science in Irrigation and Hydraulic Engineering, Cairo University (June 2017).
- Bachelor of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University (May 2012).
Research Interest:
- Improving the representation of groundwater-surface water interactions in Land Surface Schemes (LSS) in boreal forests.
- Representation of wetlands’ hydrological processes in large scale models.
Morgan Braaten
morgan.braaten@usask.caGraduated MES student: Quantifying soil moisture using geolysimeters
MES Research
Geological weighing lysimeters (GWL) provide a means to quantify the total water storage change at scales of the order 1000-10000m2, by measuring the changes in mechanical loading within an aquitard or confined aquifer. Morgan’s research combines observations from a GWL with shallow soil moisture, snow water equivalent and the shallow water table, to partition total storage into components of shallow groundwater, soil moisture, surface water and snow. Morgan is applying the MESH and SUMMA models to reproduce field observations.
Anukul Basnet
anukul.basnet@usask.caM.Sc. in Civil Engineering student: Simulating crop yield and hydrological processes in the Prairies
M.Sc. Research
Water stress is considered a key limiting factor in crop yield and is a challenge for semi-arid, cold-region Prairie agriculture. Existing crop models are mostly limited to simulating crop yield and water balance without taking into account the complex cold-region hydrological processes. Anukul’s research aims to simulate cold-region hydrological processes using the MESH, SUMMA and SHAW models for post-snowmelt/ thaw soil conditions and then use the outcome from each model to determine wheat yield using the FAO AquaCrop model for sites in Saskatchewan. Anukul will seek to explain the differences between outcomes from the three hydrological-crop model combinations and provide recommendations based on consistency with field observations.
MES Research
Ayden’s Masters research explores the transport and accumulation of salt in the prairies intending to further understand mechanisms of wetland pond salinization and the expected salt distribution changes that may occur with climate change. Ayden is using data collected from St. Denis National Wildlife Area from the past several decades to determine likely flow paths of salt in and out of wetland ponds and conditions of groundwater and climate that lead to these occurrences. Further, Ayden will be using a newly developed 2D model to simulate salt transport and accumulation in the prairie landscape to project potential changes expected under a variety of climate change scenarios.
PhD Research
Alana’s PhD research focuses on understanding how water movement and soil moisture heterogeneity across a hillslope influences active layer thaw and permafrost degradation. Her work is based on field investigations from Baker Creek, NWT where soil moisture, ground temperatures and hydrological fluxes are monitored. This work aims to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of permafrost thaw in diverse landscapes to assist in model predictions of future hydrological and biogeochemical processes.
