Aquatic Research Group Seminar looks at the impacts of road salt inputs on GTA streams

Road salt
Claire Oswald
Claire Oswald

The next event in the 2019-20 Aquatic Research Group (ARG) Seminar Series features Ryerson University Professor Claire Oswald presenting a talk titled “Impacts of road salt inputs on GTA streams.” It takes place on Wednesday, Feb. 12, at 12:30 p.m. in 140 Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies Building (HNES). The seminar will be followed by a free lunch at 1:30 p.m. All members of the York community are welcome to attend.

The pan-Faculty ARG Seminar Series, organized by biology Professor Sapna Sharma in York University’s Faculty of Science, brings top ecologists from across the province to York to talk about their research in aquatic ecology and what’s causing stress in our waterways.

Professor Oswald, of Ryerson’s Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, is a broadly-trained physical geographer with research interests in catchment hydrology, biogeochemistry, pollutant fate and transport, and dissolved organic matter quantity and quality. These interests span both natural and human-dominated landscapes, from the boreal forests of northwestern Ontario to constructed wetlands in the Alberta oil sands region to urban and urbanizing watersheds in south-central Ontario.

She holds a PhD (2011) in physical geography from the University of Toronto, an MSc (2002) in physical geography from McMaster University and a BSc (1999) in physics from McMaster University.

Here’s a look at the rest of the ARG Seminar Series lineup:

Feb. 24: Assistant Professor Carly Ziter (Concordia University), “Thinking beyond the park: landscape structure, land-use history and biodiversity shape urban ecosystem services”

March 11: Professor Karen Kidd (McMaster University), “Local through global influences of human activities on mercury in aquatic ecosystems”

Each seminar will start at 12:30 p.m., followed by a free lunch at 1:30 p.m. The seminars will all take place in HNES 140 except for the talk on Feb. 24, which will be in 306 Lumbers Building.

The ARG includes researchers who focus on aquatic science from the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Environmental Studies, and Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. The seminar series is designed to engage this multidisciplinary scientific community at all levels, including graduate and undergraduate students, both at York University and in the wider aquatic science community.