| Title | Watershed delineation in areas of permafrost disturbance on eastern Banks Island, NWT: a geomatics approach for predicting water quality impacts |
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| Author | Rudy, A C A; Lamoureux, S F; Holloway, J E; Lafrenière, M J; Kokelj, S V; Segal, R; Lantz, T C; Fraser, R H ; Smith, I R |
| Source | Proceedings of GeoQuebec 2015, 68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference; 2015 p. 1-6 |
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| Year | 2015 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20200359 |
| Meeting | GeoQuebec 2015, 68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference; Québec, QC; CA; September 20-23, 2015 |
| Document | Web site |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; on-line; digital |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Northwest Territories |
| NTS | 88B; 88C; 88D; 88F; 97G; 97H; 98A; 98B; 98C; 98D; 98E; 98F |
| Area | Banks Island; Johnson Point |
| Lat/Long WENS | -120.5000 -117.5000 73.1667 72.5000 |
| Subjects | hydrogeology; environmental geology; geophysics; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; watersheds; permafrost; ground ice; periglacial features; thermokarst; landslides; slumps; surface
waters; lakes; rivers; water quality; remote sensing; satellite imagery; sampling techniques; environmental impacts; hydrologic environment; stream water geochemistry; climate effects; Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED); National Hydro Network
(NHN); Methodology; Geographic data; Geographic information systems; Hydrometric network; Climate change; cumulative effects |
| Illustrations | photographs; location maps; satellite images; geoscientific sketch maps |
| Program | Environmental Geoscience Tools for environmental impacts and adaptation for metal mining |
| Released | 2015 09 01 |
| Abstract | The goal of this study was to develop a framework for informing water-sampling strategies to evaluate the relationships between thermokarst disturbances and impacts on water quality. A permafrost
disturbance inventory for the Johnson Point area, eastern Banks Island was produced through a visual inspection of SPOT 4 and 5 satellite imagery. A total of 197 retrogressive thaw slumps were identified and digitized, ranging in size from 2600 to
885 500 m2 with the majority of slumps located adjacent to lakes and streams. Watersheds were derived from the Canadian CDED DEM and NHN stream network data sets using ArcGIS with Spatial Analyst extensions. Specific criteria were used to create a
hierarchy of nested watersheds. This contextual information will enable us to determine if: 1) the relative density of disturbance is related to the intensity of water quality effects; 2) if water quality is impacted more by the areal extent of
disturbance or numbers of individual disturbances; and 3) whether the hydrological connectivity and distance of a disturbance to a water body affects downstream water quality. This knowledge will provide information suitable for researchers,
communities and decision makers to assess the impact of permafrost disturbance on surface water environments. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
Study looks to develop a geomatics (remote predictive mapping) approach to assessing the relative levels of disturbance caused by permafrost thaw slumps
in eastern Banks Island. In addition to affecting stream water chemistry, these slumps are responsible to contributing new inputs of potentially kimberlite indicator mineral-bearing buried glacial sediments into regional streams. Understanding the
dynamics and regional context of this accelerated permafrost disturbance is important to addressing questions of kimberlite indicator mineral provenance in stream sediment surveys. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 327082 |
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