2023
Spark Project: Parameterizing Atmospheric Mesoscale Models using Global Extent Geospatial Datasets
Raja Sengupta, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Geography) and Laxmi Sushama, Professor (Civil Engineering).
Building on the work of earlier Bieler School Spark Grant project “Can Greenspace Composition and Placement Ameliorate Urban Heat Islands?” this project’s research objective is to fund a co-supervised graduate student (Ms. Sakthivel Priyadharshini), to develop geospatial methods that will easily and quickly extract from global extent datasets urban landscape parameters to parameterize Mesocale models. Atmospheric Mesoscale Models often utilize a bare soil formulation to represent cities. This simplification is made primarily because data on urban features that cause atmospheric effects (e.g., urban canyons created by tall buildings) isn’t easy to obtain.
In the recent past, however, new global extent spatial datasets have become available, such as high-resolution satellite photos and other sensor data. These can be used to parameterize models for city-level simulations with relevant information, e.g., for emissivity. This project will explore a tentative new mechanism for automating the process of parameterizing mesocale model, and plays to Dr. Sengupta and Dr. Sushama respective strengths in two complimentary areas. Dr. Sengupta’s strengths lie in GIScience,and recently his projects have focused on determining environmental injustice related to UHI as measured by air temperature sensors located across the island of Montreal. Dr. Sushama works on targeted climate research on land-ocean-atmosphere interactions and feedbacks using high-resolution climate models.
Ignite Project: Quantifying Rapid Ecological Change in Large Rivers
Anthony Ricciardi (Bieler School of Environment/Redpath Museum), Andrew Gonzalez (Department of Biology/BSE Associate) and Zofia Taranu (Environment and Climate Change Canada).
“Over the past 30 years, the St Lawrence River has been invaded by two species of European molluscs (the zebra mussel and the quagga mussel) and two species of European fish (the round goby and the tench),” explains Professor Anthony Ricciardi, who with the help of his students has found evidence that these invasions have profoundly altered the diversity and abundance of native freshwater species in the river. “The extent to which these invasions have affected the biodiversity of the St Lawrence remains to be investigated.”
Last summer, thanks to a Bieler Spark Grant, Ricciardi’s research found that the abundance and diversity of native mussel populations across the upper St Lawrence River are at historically low levels, and that invasive fishes continue to increase their abundance in the river, and will likely outcompete native fishes as water temperatures rise under climate change. Building on this research, Ricciardi’s Bieler Ignite Grant project “Quantifying Rapid Ecological Change in Large Rivers,” will conduct the first large-scale analysis of changes to the biodiversity of the river. This dataset will be used to compare how fast and to what extent the St Lawrence biological community has changed compared to other large rivers in the world.
Ignite Project: The Landscapes and Livelihoods Collaboratory (TLLC)
Brian Robinson (Department of Geography) and Elena Bennett (Bieler School of Environment/Department of Natural Resource Sciences), Christopher Barrington-Leigh (BSE/Institute for Health and Social Policy), Eric Galbriath (Earth and Planetary Sciences), Graham MacDonald (Geography), Mette Bendixen (Geography), Yann le Polain de Waroux (Geography), Jill Baumgartner (Epidemiology), Murray Humphries (NRS), Benjamin Goldstein (Bioresource Engineering), Jan Adamowski (Bioresource Engineering).
Sustainable and resilient management of working landscapes will be a fundamental issue in the coming decades. In particular, landscapes should provide benefits (ecosystem services) in equitable and just ways to meet human and non-human needs sustainably over generations, in ways that are resilient to social and ecological perturbations. To build capacity towards this, The Landscapes and Livelihoods Collaboratory (TLLC), developed with BSE Ignite funding, aims to coalesce a group of scholars (faculty and students) from across faculties at McGill around a shared focus on landscape sustainability from a multi- and trans-disciplinary perspective.
The project will bring together insights and approaches from the natural, health, and social sciences as well as the humanities in genuinely collaborative endeavors; use place-based SES thinking to understand and resolve sustainability challenges; provide spaces for like-minded scholars at all levels and societal partners (decision-makers and knowledge holders from outside the university) to meet and exchange ideas. Ignite support for TLLC will galvanize McGill’s deep expertise in environmental sustainability through activities designed to build a trusting multi-disciplinary community.
Ignite Project: The Breakdown of Agricultural Plastic Mulch and its Effects on Canadian Soils and Freshwaters
Nathalie Tufenkji (Chemical Engineering), Anthony Ricciardi (Bieler School of Environment and Redpath Museum) and Irene Gregory-Eaves (Biology).
“Our planet is drowning in plastic pollution, and widespread use of plastic mulch is considered a major contributor of plastics of all sizes to soils, with potential downstream effects on water bodies,” the project’s team explains. “The goal of this project is to assess the burden and impacts of microplastics and plastic-derived chemicals in Canadian agricultural soils and freshwaters, in order to help inform policies and regulations that will promote sustainability and protect environmental and public health.”
This collaboration builds on the expertise of three BSE-affiliated faculty that span the areas of microplastic characterization, identification of organic contaminants, and ecotoxicology. The results of this work will form the basis of a new 3-year NSERC Alliance grant application in collaboration with partners from industry and government agencies. The research will situate the Bieler School at the forefront of a rapidly exploding, innovative, and high-priority field that has implications for sustainable development, protection of the environment and public health, also positioning McGill University to become a Centre of Excellence in plastic pollution research.
Ignite Project: Encountering Traditional Ecological Knowledge on the Backyards of Urban Europe: The Last Juniper Berry Pickers in the Pyrenees
Ismael Vaccaro (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Anthropology) and Raja Sengupta (Bieler School of Environment/Geography).
In the Western world, the last century has witnessed a major trend towards urbanization and a progressive abandonment of the rural areas. This modernization of mountain landscapes has resulted in a significant loss of traditional environmental knowledge, not only concerning plants and mushrooms, but also ecosystems, oral histories and the observation of practices that are fundamental for understanding how rural landscapes are shaped and changed.
This project will describe and collect the knowledge held by these pickers. “It will open a window to a landscape, from a social and ecological perspective, that has all but vanished, and gather as much knowledge as possible about how these rural populations interacted with the ‘wild’ species they collected and how this human-wild species interaction was vital for the resilience of the landscape,” explains Vaccaro. The team’s expertise combines ethnography, ethnoecology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and visual anthropology, to document in the most diverse and rigorous fashion a way of life and a landscape that are changing fast. A key deliverable of the project will be an ethnographic film.
2022
Spark Project: Little Green Spaces – Can Greenspace Composition and Placement Ameliorate Urban Heat Islands?
Raja Sengupta, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Geography) and Laxmi Sushama, Professor (Civil Engineering)
The project examines how urban greenspaces (such as parks, woodlands, or Montreal’s “ruelles vertes” – green alleyways) can ameliorate UHI and reduce temperature in their immediate vicinity. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, including heat-related mortality, is a growing problem in cities across the world, exacerbated in expanding urban regions due to higher night-time temperatures and increased energy for air conditioning, and is typically associated with city centres and densely-packed, less affluent neighbourhoods.
“My research is trying to prove that little green spaces have an impact,” says Professor Sengupta. “A little bit more greenery around us could have multiple benefits, not just for urban heat. I’d like policy in the city of Montreal that advocates for small green spaces. I want to be able to quantitively prove it, because everybody asks ‘what’s the value of the greenspace?’ Well, here it is. If you have a lot of little green spaces, a one-degree temperature reduction is quite a bit.”
Read more about the project in the and on.
Spark Project: Drivers of Rapid Ecological Change in the St. Lawrence River
Anthony Ricciardi, Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Redpath Museum), Andy Gonzalez, Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Biology), and Dr. Zofia Taranu (Environment and Climate Change Canada)
The St. Lawrence River has been radically transformed within a span of a few human generations. A major stressor occurring since the 1990s is a series of species invasions by Eurasian mussels and fishes, whose presence has been linked to strong local changes to biodiversity. This project will assemble a database to quantify temporal patterns in the species richness of fish and invertebrate communities within the ~300km section of the river from the Lake Ontario outflow to Lac Saint Pierre, producing the first large-scale analysis of spatiotemporal changes to biodiversity in the river.
“We expect the data to reveal how fast and to what extent native species have declined, and some of the recent drivers responsible,” notes Professor Ricciardi. “The results should help managers to quantify and prioritize biodiversity threats in the river.”
Read more about the project in the .
Spark Project: Nitrogen Dynamics in a Novel Perennial, Biodiverse Cropping System
Fiona Soper, Assistant Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Biology), Cynthia Kallenbach, Assistant Professor (Bieler School of Environment Associate Member and Department of Natural Resource Sciences), and Jessica Nicksy, PhD student (Department of Natural Resource Sciences and Kallenbach lab)
Perennial crops can be grown in a way that mimics natural carbon-sequestering grassland systems, require far less farmer intervention and include biodiverse species mixtures with complementary ecological roles. The goal of this project is to measure how incorporating legumes (which create their own fertilizer from the air) into cropping mixtures can improve their productivity by replacing humanmade fertilizer inputs and improving soil functioning.
Read more about the project in the .
Spark Project: Rapidly Changing Socioecological Systems: Lessons from Lake Nabugabo, Uganda
Ismael Vaccaro, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Anthropology) and Lauren Chapman, Professor (Bieler School of Environment Affiliate and Department of Biology)
Freshwater capture fisheries are fundamental sources of food security in the Global South, particularly in Africa and Asia. Lake Nabugabo, located in Uganda, East Africa, despite being under an enormous amount of human pressure, has proven to be extremely resilient. The study’s goal is to understand this resilience and how policies, fishers, and fish species behave and interact with each other, and the impacts on biodiversity and food security.
Read more about the project in the .
Ignite Project: Estimating the Urban Nutrient Footprint in Panama City and its Ecological Impact
Brian Leung, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Biology), Kevin Manaugh, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Geography), Fiona Soper, Assistant Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Biology), Graham MacDonald, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment Associate and Department of Geography)
By 2050, the human population is projected to increase to more than 9 billion, with 70 per cent living in cities, with wide-ranging consequences for biodiversity and water quality. This study will produce the first estimate of urban nutrient inputs into the environment, from transport related deposition, wastewater sources, and peri-urban agriculture for Panama City.
“We will estimate potential environmental effects, focusing on mangrove ecosystems surrounding Panama City, and develop an urban ‘nutrient’ model, which has not been done for Panama City,” explains Professor Leung. “This work will help produce a predictive country-wide model which will serve as a platform to ask sustainability and environmental questions, and provide scientific information needed to make informed policy decisions about the future.”
Read more about the project in the .
Ignite Project: Street Network Sprawl and Environmental and Social Outcomes in Canada
Christopher Barrington-Leigh, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Institute for Health
and Social Policy), and Kevin Manaugh, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department
of Geography)
Among humanity’s most critical long-run climate-relevant investments are the street networks that are laid down during urban expansion. Buildings
may come and go, but the local residential street layout is generally permanent, even in the face of large market and institutional shifts over centuries, not decades.
This Ignite project will use high-resolution data and evaluate the long-term effects of street network style on human lives and happiness. “The hope is to create new standards for building future-proof, resilient neighbourhoods, favouring high street connectivity and adaptability,” explains Professor Barrington-Leigh, “so that future cities can offer mixed use, walkable, and diverse neighbourhoods.”
Read more about the project in the .
Ignite Project: Citizen Scientists - Taking Environmental Citizen Science Contributions to the Next Level
Frédéric Fabry, Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences), Renee Sieber, Associate Professor (Bieler School of Environment and Department of Geography)
From 1863 to 1992 McGill ran a weather observatory that collected precious information: weather measurements of all kinds, many times a day. These measurements are in logbooks, scanned on microfilm, and digitized into images, but in a form that is usable. The task of transcribing the McGill Weather Observatory logbooks has been carried out by the initiative, including students and volunteer “citizen scientists.”
The Ignite project represents a new phase of this work, to assess accuracy issues in transcribing the McGill observatory data, using multiple methods including writing code to automate the process, and creating metadata to generate an audit trail for any modifications to the database. “Most people who’ve transcribed data only do daily averages,” explains Professor Fabry. “We are daring to take all the measurements – over 1.5 million unvalidated observations, transcribed to date – which is why our transcription is a lot slower than many others. The inconvenience is that it takes much longer and that’s why we need all this help to determine its accuracy.”
Read more about the project in the .