Notice Board

The Science Seminar Series is a regular venue for sharing information relevant to Alberta’s environmental monitoring and science programs, hosted by the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS), Alberta Environment and Protected Areas (EPA). 

Alberta water resource managers and governmental policy makers require water availability estimates to ensure there is a sufficient supply to meet increasing demands while at the same time responding to potential decreases in the supply from a changing climate. This research quantified spatial estimates of winter snow water equivalent (SWE) water yields for the West Castle Watershed, located in the Oldman River basin, which is part of the Southwestern Alberta Rocky Mountain headwaters. SWE estimates were created using a combination of a) airborne lidar derived snow depths; and b) publicly accessible Government of Alberta field snowpack sampling and monitoring datasets to constrain models for SWE estimates. Results of this study show promise as a new remote sensing snowpack water resources monitoring and mapping framework for Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. SWE water yields created in this research can be used by water managers to address the need for improved headwater resource assessments.