A Day in the Life of CVC's GIS Specialist

Why GIS? GIS enables conservation planners and managers, as well as watershed engineers to access and utilize current historical and time series information relevant to conservation. This may include ecosystem management, watershed assessment and modeling, species remediation programs, land use planning, and the support of geographical information. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) evolved as the answer to a basic, but difficult question: “How can features existing in a specific place at a specific time be analyzed and manipulated?” GIS provides the ability to analyze and model data in a spatial context. The ability of a GIS to manipulate data from specific geographic locations offers the opportunity to create realistic perspectives which can aid in determining the effects of future actions. This unique ability is providing scientists, regional planners, and resource managers the opportunity to distill and combine large sets of spatial data into useful information, offering new perspectives and fresh approaches to problem solving. This can be particularly useful for watershed management.

7:00 a.m.
Arrive at the office with a fresh, new ‘perspective’ for the day. Check voicemail, email, and paper notes on my desk to see if there are any new GIS requests from CVCers. Prioritizing and accommodating requests, combined with the regular work load can be quite the challenge.

7:30 a.m.
Some maps created for CVC’s Watershed Report Card need to be slightly modified to make them public-friendly. The request is marked ‘Urgent’. The work is dealt with and done accordingly and the maps are sent back to the contractor.

9:25 a.m.
A cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate won’t hurt at all.

9:30 a.m.
It’s time for a brief meeting with the water resources engineer. We discuss the GIS and mapping needs for the environmental studies of the Brampton area of our watershed. This work has to wait until the next week.

10:00 a.m.
Restoration opportunities in the Mississauga area are being actively investigated by the managers. Two huge maps of Mississauga watersheds with the existing land use and natural communities are being created for the mission. A considerable amount of information needs to be collected for the maps. I’ve done my best, but the work has to continue tomorrow.

12:15 p.m.
A quick light lunch, a discussion with colleagues in the lunch room, and a short refreshing walk outside are in order.

1:00 p.m.
The Shaw’s Creek Characterization Report preparations are underway. A few more maps are required for the report. The maps are done as scheduled.

3:15 p.m.
One of CVC’s terrestrial monitoring staff pops up asking for some numbers. I do a quick query and provide quick numbers. Any more detailed calculations have to be scheduled for a later time.

3:30 p.m.
Head home and begin to think of something innovative to eat for dinner.

Under the Naturalists' Eye: A Trees Nifty Ways to Survive Winter

When we think about how our wild neighbours get through winter, we often think of two things; migration and hibernation. As many as 70% of our songbirds head for warmer climes in the winter and other animals such as amphibians, bears, groundhogs and jumping mice (yes we have two species) hibernate through the winter.

But what about trees, how do they cope with winter? Our forest trees have developed some interesting winter adaptation strategies to prevent freezing during the cold times of the winter season. The most obvious strategies are the losing of leaves by deciduous trees and the production of the small waxy-coated needles of coniferous trees. Both strategies prevent critical water loss through the winter.

Other interesting adaptations are utilized as well. Some trees will produce a type of antifreeze which lowers the freezing temperature of their intercellular water. Others will actually drain their cells of all water and fill the spaces between the cells with it. The tree can actually freeze and not experience damage to the living cells within them.

Perhaps the most fascinating adaptation can be found in some of our common trees like maples. These trees will actually super-purify their intercellular water. “Super-pure” water has no minute dust or other particles in it, so there is nothing for ice to form around at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit.) These trees can withstand temperatures as low as -40 degrees C. This is the magic number for many of our trees. At minus 40 degrees (the same temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit) water freezes spontaneously, requiring no foreign particles for the ice to form around.

Repeated days below minus 40 degrees will severely damage or actually kill the trees. Trees might prefer to head south for the winter or climb into a warm, cozy burrow deep in the earth to get through winter. But because they can’t they had to come up with there own methods and they have done that amazingly well!