Offshore Groundwater Resources in a Changing Marine Environment: Continental Shelf Surrounding PEI

Groundwater represents the world’s largest freshwater resource and provides drinking water for two billion people globally and over 10 million Canadians. Prince Edward Island is 100% dependent on groundwater for both irrigation and drinking, but this resource has faced compounding stresses in recent years due to the extensive agricultural industry and the impacts of climate change. Freshwater offshore aquifers located beneath the seafloor may represent a new and critical water resource for PEI.

Project details

Principal Investigator(s):
Vittorio Maselli
Principal Investigator:
Project Start Date:
Project End Date:
Documentation:
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Research Outcomes

About the research project

About the research

The project brings together an internationally renowned and multidisciplinary research team to test the hypothesis that offshore aquifers are hosted in fractured consolidated clastic sediments, and that the dynamics of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glacial-interglacial cycle(s) contributed to their recharge. Using state-of-the-art geophysical, oceanographic, and geochemical equipment, the team will focus on the continental shelf surrounding PEI to discover and map offshore freshwater aquifers. The new data will be used to understand how these aquifers evolve in response to water extraction and changes in climate and coastal environments.  By providing estimates of offshore groundwater quality and quantity, this project will have a direct application for future sustainable development of PEI and other island and marine coastal settings worldwide.  

Principal Investigators

CoPIs

Collaborators

  • ‍Judith Elger (GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Collaborator WP1)
  • ‍Helmuth Thomas (Helmholtz Centre for Material and Coastal Research, Collaborator WP3, WP4)
  • ‍Ruth Musgrave (Dalhousie University, Oceanography, Collaborator WP4)

Partners

  • Dalhousie University
  • University of Prince Edward Island
  • Memorial University of Newfoundland, Marine Institute
  • GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
  • University of Delaware
  • Helmholtz Center for Material and Coastal Research
  • Nova Scotia Community College
  • Texas A&M University
  • Government of PEI - Environment, Water and Climate Change
  • Government of PEI - Energy Corporation
  • Nova Scotia Department of Energy and Mines
  • Geological Survey of Canada Atlantic
  • Aquanty Inc.
  • AML Oceanographic
  • Rockland Scientific
  • Kongsberg
  • Mi'kmaq Confederacy of PEI
  • Seaforth Geosurveys Inc.
  • 20 NEXUS Resource Management Ltd.

Bringing together researchers, industry and government to solve complex ocean problems

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Dalhousie University
Steele Ocean Sciences Building
6375 Edzell Castle Circle
P.O. Box 15000
Halifax, NS, Canada
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1.902.494.8823

St. John's Office

Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador
Core Science Facility
45 Arctic Avenue
Room CSF 5310
St. John's, NL, Canada
A1C 5S7
1.709.864.3773

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