Water and environmental management in oil sands regions
J. J. Gibson, Daniel L. Peters
Abstract
Oil sands regions worldwide with emphasis on rapidly developing areas of western Canada. This article introduces scientific contributions to the special issue paper collection focusing on water and environmental management in oil sands regions. Twenty-one new studies highlight current advances in understanding of hydrological processes relevant to oil sands regions, including: 1) regional assessments of water balance and hydrochemistry in lakes, wetlands and rivers, 2) on-lease investigations carried out at operating oil sands mines including mine circuits and reclaimed wetland and upland sites, 3) off-lease impact investigations including nitrogen emissions, lake and wetland studies, and groundwater monitoring, and 4) a paleohydrologic investigation establishing a record of water balance, chemistry, lake productivity and temperature dating back prior to industrial development. The collection emphasizes multi-disciplinary field-based approaches including use of physical, chemical and isotopic methods. Several modelling programs are also shown to be informative for specific tasks. The interplay of water quantity, water quality and vegetation characteristics is a common finding for reclamation assessments that report sensitivity of wetland vegetation to observed salinity accumulation linked to contact with buried tailings material. While all studies herein report results from the Canadian oil sands region, we posit that these investigations may provide insight into environmental challenges to be encountered worldwide, given the similar geologic settings and bitumen properties noted.