Abstract

An understanding of trends in regional water resources and their relation to regional meteorological conditions is important to help develop appropriate climate change adaptation policies and strategies. This research quantified the spatial temporal variability of annual streamflow and precipitation changes using new data analysis methods (i.e., continuous wavelet transform and cross wavelet transform), as well as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The continuous wavelet transform and cross wavelet transform were used to detect and extract temporal changes in the annual streamflow amplitude and its relative phase shift to help assess spatial temporal differences and trends in the annual flood onset from 1969 to 1992 (when recordings were terminated) in 23 stations in Eastern Ontario and Southwestern Quebec, Canada. This research resulted in a number of findings. It was determined that there was an approximately 0.5mm per month decrease in precipitation in the Southwestern part of Ontario during the study period. In the rural Northwest region of Ontario, there was an approximately 0.2 mm per year increase in precipitation. In the Northwest along the Ottawa River, the annual flood in 1992 occurred approximately 50 days earlier than in 1969; but only about 10 days earlier in the Southeastern streams. Streamflows in the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers were found to have lower annual amplitudes than the smaller and more pristine streams and rivers which had more seasonality. And finally, it was determined that the annual streamflow amplitude did not show any significant trend in time and space.