Ensemble analysis of climate change impacts on Churchill River, Labrador hydrology

The goal of the proposed research project is to develop a robust and useful analysis of the effects of climate change on the hydrology of the Churchill River watershed in Labrador. The partner organization, Nalcor Energy, is planning a multi-billion dollar hydroelectric development on the Churchill River and has a strong interest on the impact climate change may have on initial project engineering and operations throughout its lifespan. Specific objectives of this internship represent some of the final milestones of a continuing research collaboration, the groundwork for which was laid during past internships. Objectives include preprocessing various datasets, setting up and running a hydrological and river routing model, validating model outputs, creating weighted ensembles from three different analysis approaches and combining all results using probabilistic methods to produce a useful representation of the impacts of climate change.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Ken Snelgrove

Student:

Jonas Roberts

Partner:

Nalcor Energy

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Energy

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland