Quantifying the contribution of groundwater in southern Ontario to the Great Lakes water balance

The department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has a requirement to examine the contribution of groundwater within Southern Ontario to the Great Lakes water budget. The Geological Survey of Canada uses a physically based groundwater – surface-water modelling platform for the region that can support the analysis of groundwater fluxes to the Great Lakes within southern Ontario. Using that platform, the groundwater base-flow contribution will be calculated under both steady state and seasonally transient groundwater – surface-water flow conditions using a model that incorporates the full hydrostratigraphy and groundwater flow to streams and lake bodies via shoreline and bottom discharge. To support understanding of model performance and the limitations inherent in different models the analysis will be completed using:

Frey, S.K., Khader, O., Taylor, A., Erler, A.R., Lapen, D.R., Sudicky, E.A., Berg, S.J., and Russell, H.A.J. 2019. Afully integrated groundwater – surface-water model for southern Ontario: Proof-of-Concept; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8369, 1 .zip file. https://doi.org/10.4095/321042

The contractor will provide an acceptable watershed-scale model 3000 to 8000 km sq. in area. All modelling will be based on the same hydrostratigraphic model. The groundwater discharge estimates provided as part of the project deliverable will be suitable to support the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) Annex 8 https://binational.net/glwqa-aqegl/

The model analysis must be written for publication as a GSC Open File report.