Dr. Derek R. Peddle
 PARC-WISE
Research Professor in Climate Change
Derek Peddle is the Scientific Director of the Water Institute for Semi-arid
Ecosystems (WISE) headquartered at The University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge
Alberta , and was appointed as the PARC-WISE Research Professor in Climate
Change July 1, 2004 . He is an Associate Professor of Geography at Lethbridge
where he leads a diverse research program in climate change applications
in water, forestry, and agriculture using Geographical Information Science
tools such as remote sensing, GIS, GPS and digital mapping and numerical
modeling. An NSERC Scholar since his appointment at UofL in 1996, Dr.
Peddle was one of 8 recipients in Canada of an International Fulbright
Senior Fellowship for his sabbatical study leave research on climate change
and remote sensing with NASA and the University of Maryland , USA in 2000.
Prior to Lethbridge he received the Ph.D. ( Waterloo ) and M.Sc. ( Calgary
) degrees in remote sensing and geography, with an undergraduate B.Sc.
honours degree in computer science and geography from Memorial University
of Newfoundland. During this time he also worked at NORDCO Ltd., the Institute
for Space and Terrestrial Science (CresTech), Wilfrid Laurier University
, and NASA, where he received a Visiting Scientist Award in 1994 through
the Universities Space Research Association Earth Systems Science Program
at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He has over 100 publications
including 38 refereed journal papers, and has received 6 best paper awards
at national/international symposia since 1995. He is a co-investigator
in the NSERC-BIOCAP Fluxnet-Canada Research Network, Theme Leader in the
Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Water Research (AICWR: UL Watersheds) and
is the Regional Chair for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba on the Executive
of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society as well as serving on several national
and international advisory and review panels.
The Research Program
“Analysis of Climate Change, Water Stress and Carbon Stocks using
Geographical Information Science”
Climate change impacts and adaptation in the Canadian western interior
are of great concern for the resource-based economies and industries that
rely on water in the energy, forestry and agriculture sectors. The main
scientific objectives of this research are to assess water stress and
carbon stocks in the major ecosystems within and adjacent to the western
interior (mountains, forests, agriculture/grasslands, peatlands), and
to contribute to a comprehensive approach to assessing climate change
impacts and adaptation with respect to the major energy and water utility
companies and environmental change. Four applications are identified that
draw extensively on powerful GIS/IT capabilities to characterise recent
and present conditions, as well as providing a wealth of tools for expanding
and integrating this knowledge for enhancing longer term proxy data and
coarse grid scale numerical models and synoptic climatology in collaboration
with other PARC researchers. The four application areas are: mountain
hydrology; forests; water and agriculture; and spatiotemporal analyses,
described below:
1. Mountain Hydrology: Source water from the Alberta
Rocky Mountains drains to neighbouring prairie provinces , accounting
for about 70% of the surface water supplies in the Prairie Ecozone. Water
inputs from Alberta mountains will be assessed using new climatic and
topographic GIS indices of precipitation, wind, temperature, snow availability,
and solar radiation derived from satellite imagery, terrain models and
climate data. A follow-on capability for numerical simulation of water
availability for collaborative predictive modeling will be pursued with
other PARC researchers.
2. Forests: Drought increases forest productivity stress
and fire frequency/intensity, releasing stored carbon and possibly becoming
a net carbon source. Innovative use of powerful 3-D computer forest models
with satellite imagery provides improved large-area estimates of forest
biophysical structure and productivity that are related to water stress
and needed for improved inputs to carbon models to reduce current climate
change uncertainty.
3. Water and Agriculture: This sector has major water
needs, which also affect the energy and forestry sectors. Research will
analyse water needs, drought stress, irrigation needs, and carbon stocks
with respect to crop yield, health, weed detection, vegetation productivity
and biomass estimation using remote sensing. Spectral mixture analysis
of hyperspectral airborne and multispectral satellite imagery over large
areas will be used as an improvement on current approaches.
4. Spatiotemporal Analyses: Climate change processes
are inextricably linked over space and time. GIS modeling capabilities
can extend climate scenarios and impact assessments over longer time periods
and larger areas. This unifying concept will enhance the research described
above and that of partner scientists within PARC. The spatial detail of
point-based data over lengthy time scales and coarse grid numerical modeling
will be refined using spatial modeling, GIS, remote sensing and time series
analysis (e.g. proxy, instrumental, remote sensing) in collaboration with
other PARC researchers.
For more information on Dr. Peddle visit: http://www.uleth.ca/geo/faculty/derekp.htm
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