#816: Sandhill Fen: Research
Fens are wetlands and crucial to the water balance or hydrology of the boreal forest.
A big question for Syncrude is whether it can build an effective watershed as it reclaims its old mine pits.
As ecologist Carla Wytrykush explains, scientific research is key to understanding created landscapes like Syncrude’s Sandhill Fen.
CARLA WYTRYKUSH: At the University of Alberta, we have a hydrologist and hydro-geologist helping us to understand, where is the water moving in the fen. One of the challenges with reclamation is that we’re limited with water in the boreal plain in Alberta. There’s only so much to go around. So how do you get water to fill wetlands at the same time as have enough water to grow really big trees? And the balance in this watershed is we want to push it toward the wetland, so we made those hills drier. We were going to plant drier forests. So they’re helping us understand, are we seeing the water moving from the hills into the wetlands and are we getting enough. What is the quality and the quantity of the water that is being delivered to the wetland.
Carla Wytrykush says another researcher is investigating how the number of trees changes the way water moves through the boreal landscape.
Thanks today to Syncrude.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Syncrude
Program Date: 2016-10-20