It’s said that to understand crime and corruption, you need to “follow the money.” To understand the ecology of our coastal margin, you need to “follow the water.” Following the water is the science of hydrology, an important area of research for Hakai. The most important driver of the process is weather. Weather brings precipitation to the coastal margin—rain, seasonal snow, ice accumulation—driven by the global dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean. Most of it falls on the windward slopes of the coastal mountains. Most of that water eventually flows back through the watersheds to the ocean. Runoff follows different seasonal time courses for rain, snow, and glaciers. Think of the process as “timed release” of a key determinant of health for our coastal ecosystems. Life in the watersheds is exquisitely sensitive to the quantity, quality, and timing of that flux of water. For example, the health of salmon swimming upstream to their midsummer spawning sites depends on both water levels and water temperature. In many systems, the midsummer cold freshet from the glaciers is essential for survival. Waterborne sediments, nutrients, dissolved organic carbon, and other factors also strongly influence life in the watersheds and coastal ocean. For all these reasons, we study all aspects of watershed hydrology, spanning the entire range from "icefields to oceans." We pay particular attention to how climate change affects these processes, particularly related to our receding coastal glaciers.
