Setting Targets for Wetland Restoration to Mitigate Climate Change Effects on Watershed Hydrology.

How much wetland we should protect or restore is not a simple question, such that conservation targets are often set according to political agendas, then standardized globally. However, given their key regulating hydrological functions, wetlands represent nature-based solutions to the anticipated, exacerbating effect of climate change on drought and flood events, which will vary at the regional scale. Here, we propose a science-based approach to establishing regional wetland restoration targets centered on their hydrological functions, using a case study on several sub-watersheds of a northern temperate basin in south-eastern Canada.

What would have been the impacts of wetlands on low flow support and high flow attenuation under steady state land cover conditions?

Conversion of wetlands into other land covers such as cropland or urban area can affect watershed hydrology. The main objective of this work was to quantify the impact of land cover changes, especially those for wetlands, on low flow support and high flow attenuation, through a sub-watershed analysis of the St. Charles River, Quebec, Canada.