Research Facilities

Main Offices

The Centre for Hydrology has a central core for some of its GWF faculty and researchers along with the Smart Water Systems Laboratory in Environment and Climate Change Canada's National Hydrology Research Centre, where it is co-located with the Global Institute for Water Security and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Other facilities are also to be found in Kirk Hall, in the heart of the main campus. Canmore offices are located at the Coldwater Laboratory in the Canadian Rockies.

Interdisciplinary Collaborations

Hydrology-related activities also take place in labs and departments elsewhere on campus, providing facilities for research in aquatic ecology (Biology), soil hydrology, groundwater, modelling, and hydraulics (Civil, Geological and Environmental Engineering), GIS, remote sensing, ecohydrology, sociohydrology (Geography and Planning), groundwater, geochemistry, and isotope analysis (Geology), catchment hydrology, soils, sociohydrology and water management, soil hydrology and chemistry (Soil Science), and aquatic contaminant chemistry (Toxicology). There is an excellent computing and information technology infrastructure, including access to the high-performance Compute Canada.

Field Sites and Facilities

The Centre for Hydrology manages the majority of its research relating to mountain hydrology at the Coldwater Laboratory in Canmore, Alberta. Additional facilities are available at the Barrier Lake Field Station in Kananaskis Country, which also provides accommodation for fieldwork in nearby research basins.

Field studies are conducted in a wide variety of settings and locations, in Canada and around the world. Principal research sites include BERMS, St. Denis, and Clavet in Saskatchewan, the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory in Alberta, and Wolf Creek in the Yukon Territory.

To support its field studies, the Centre for Hydrology owns and operates a comprehensive inventory of instrumentation and equipment, including dataloggers, hygrothermometers, thermocouples (conventional and infrared), anemometers (cup, propellor and sonic), long-wave radiometers, solarimeters, rain and snow gauges, barometric pressure transducers, soil moisture meters, groundwater level recorders, stream gauges, UAVs, LIDAR, heavy-duty 4x4 trucks, ATVs and snowmobiles.