Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier (2017-2018 à 2018-2019).

This project will improve our ability to protect infrastructure and ecological health for urban streams that havex000D
become unstable due to flow changes. In urban areas, changes to the land surface (combined with thex000D
construction of storm drains) has fundamentally altered how water moves across the land surface. The samex000D
rainstorm in a urban area produces a larger flood than it would in a natural environment, and urban streamsx000D
often become unstable due to the increased flows. In order to control the hazards associated with urbanx000D
streams, it is common practice to design and build a range of structures within the stream in order to limitx000D
erosion, particularly when infrastructure such as roads, buildings or buried pipes could be affected. Pastx000D
practices relied on building large rock features and/or concrete structures designed to prevent any movement ofx000D
the stream at all (so-called 'hard engineering" techniques); that is, streams were transformed from anx000D
unacceptably unstable state resulting from urbanization to a completely static one where no change to thex000D
channel is possible. The natural, stable state (in which small, localized changes occur on an annual basis) isx000D
completely by-passed, and as a result, the ecosystems that depend upon these streams suffer. Relativelyx000D
recently, policy makers and land managers have expressed their intention to protect both infrastructure andx000D
aquatic ecosystems. The advances made by Dr. Eaton and his research group on the factors controlling channelx000D
stability suggest that it is possible to gradually adjust the level of channel activity by adding or removing smallx000D
volumes of the coarsest material naturally found in the stream. This implies that, rather than forcing a stream tox000D
remain completely static within the confines of a concrete boundary, it may be possible to modify the sedimentx000D
within the channel so as to restore the natural level of channel activity, and to prevent the urbanization-inducedx000D
instability that can be costly, both in terms of damage and loss of human life. This grant will allow GEOx000D
Morphix Ltd. and UBC to evaluate this promising approach in the context of ongoing restoration activities inx000D
the Greater Toronto Area.