APPLYING A HYDROLOGIC CLASSIFICATION APPROACH TO LOW GRADIENT BOREAL WATERSHEDS BRITTANY RUNDLE GERMAIN A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES NIPISSING UNIVERSITY NORTH BAY, ONTARIO March, 2017 © BRITTANY RUNDLE GERMAIN, 2017 ii Abstract The Attawapiskat River catchment makes up a ~57,000 km2 area in Ontario’s Far North extending from Precambrian Shield headwaters through the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) ecozone to the coast. The region is peatland dominated and the low gradient, large expanses require further analysis and study to address uncertainties about their variations in hydrologic response. Recent hydrologic or catchment classification studies aim to assess broad-scale hydrologic systems in terms of smaller ‘building blocks’ to help develop hypotheses of how hydrologic systems function within specific terrains, but few if any have focused on low gradient peatland dominated systems. This study applies Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to representative catchments within the HBL ecozone, the Boreal Shield and the transition between the two in the Attawapiskat River watershed to assess hydrologic similarity based on physical, climatic and hydrologic characteristics. Different assessments of hydrologic similarity between catchments were made based on the combination of metrics/characteristics included in seven scenarios. Physical and terrain-based characteristics grouped catchments by physiographic region (HBL, transition zone and Shield), while hydrologic characteristics (i.e. tracer and flow-based metrics) grouped catchments both by physiographic region and partly by groundwater influence. Physical and terrain-based characteristics were found to exhibit the most control on the PC-space while hydrologic characteristics provided additionally important details about source water contributions to overall catchment hydrology. This study illustrates the importance of tracer- based/flow metrics in hydrologic similarity analyses. Keywords Hydrologic classification, peatland environments, Hudson Bay Lowlands iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank the many people that supported and contributed to the completion of this research: First, I wish to thank my advisors Dr. April James and Dr. Brian Branfireun for the support, direction, and guidance throughout this process. Thank you especially to Dr. James for the opportunity to work for/with you on both this project and many others. Thank you to all members past and present of the Nipissing Watershed Analysis Centre/Integrative Watershed Research Centre for being my work colleagues, school mates and for letting me make a second home out of the lab for the years I have been here. I have had many opportunities as part of this lab group that I would never have experienced if I had ended up somewhere else. Thank you to everyone else who contributed the data for this research: DeBeers Canada, University of Western Ontario, University of Waterloo, Nipissing University, OMNRF, OMOECC and the Vale Living with Lakes Centre. Thank you to Dr. Krystopher Chutko for being a sounding board and someone who is always available to answer questions, no matter how inane they may be. Thank you to the Canadian Network of Aquatic Ecosystem Services for all the contacts, events and conversations that have been made possible by this network over the last few years. While working at a smaller university, it was extremely beneficial to be a part of a larger community and see how other institutions operate their graduate programs. On a more personal note, thank you to my husband for supporting me completely during this process. Thank you for keeping me fed and keeping me on task for the last few years. You made life much easier on me by keeping up on everything (E.g. laundry) while I attempted to focus. Lastly, thank you to my parents Malcolm and Glenda Rundle: you formed this brain from day one, so everything I do is a testament to your parenting! iv Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii List of Appendices ............................................................................................................. ix 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Hydrologic Classification Approach ....................................................................... 2 1.2 Catchment Scale Connectivity in Large Scale Peatlands ....................................... 5 1.3 Rationale for Catchment Classification Indices ...................................................... 7 1.4 Research Objectives .............................................................................................. 10 1.5 Study Area ............................................................................................................ 11 2 Methods ........................................................................................................................ 19 2.1 Catchment Metrics ................................................................................................ 19 2.2 Statistical Analysis ................................................................................................ 29 3 Results .......................................................................................................................... 31 3.1 Catchment Characteristics .................................................................................... 31 3.2 Principal Component Analysis Scenarios ............................................................. 41 4 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 53 5 Conclusions and Future Direction ................................................................................ 59 References ......................................................................................................................... 62 Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 67 v List of Tables Table 1: List of study catchments, as defined by streamflow and water chemistry monitoring. Full station name, FIRNNO and PWQMN identification provided where relevant. .................... 18 Table 2: Physiographic metrics for research sub-catchments (OMNRF, OIHD, 2012). .............. 22 Table 3: Percent cover of Quaternary Geology (for values > 10%) and assigned permeability ranking (1:1,000,000 [OGS, 1997]). Permeability rankings of 1-5 are assigned for lowest to highest permeabilities. .................................................................................................................. 23 Table 4: Percent cover of Bedrock Geology (for values >10%) and assigned permeability ranking of dominant rock types. (1:250,000 [OMNDM, 2011]). Permeability rankings of 1-3 are assigned for lowest to highest values........................................................................................................... 25 Table 5: Percent cover of landcover types for all research catchments (OMNRF, OFAT, 2013).26 Table 6: Climate data and metrics for each region. Data from Environment Canada (RoF and SNF, accessed in 2015) and De Beers VM Research Station (HBL). .......................................... 27 Table 7: Flow-based metrics normalized by drainage areas. Data from Water Survey of Canada (SNF, accessed in 2015) and De Beers VM Research Station (HBL). ......................................... 27 Table 8: Tracer-based metrics. Data collected by Nipissing University (SNF), De Beers VM Research Station (HBL) and OMECC (RoF). See Appendix 7a-j for data. ................................. 28 Table 9: Combinations of catchment characteristics used for different Principal Component Analysis scenarios. Refer to Tables 2-8 for detailed information about each group of metrics. .. 30 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Terrestrial ecozones in Ontario, Canada. Boreal Shield in green, Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL) in blue and Mixedwood Plains in red. Attawapiskat River and watershed indicated (NABCI Canada, 2014). ................................................................................................................. 1 Figure 2: Schematic of the T3 concept, taken from Buttle (2006). Hypothetical mapping of a Batchawana River catchment (1) and Abitibi River catchment (2) in terms of relative control of the three T’s (typology, topography and topology). ....................................................................... 4 Figure 3: Map of Ontario with Attawapiskat watershed outlined and research catchments highlighted. Black dots are climate stations used in study. .......................................................... 13 Figure 4: Victor Mine research sub-catchments. .........................................................................