The Water Institute and the LabEx COTE Cluster of Excellence
The University of Waterloo’s Water Institute and the University of Bordeaux's LabEx COTE Cluster of Excellence have been collaborating since 2014, when the Water Institute convened a workshop in Waterloo with Bordeaux researchers to explore potential areas of collaboration.
In 2016, 10 Waterloo researchers, led by Professor Roy Brouwer, executive director, Water Institute, visited the LabEx COTE at the University of Bordeaux, to participate in a follow-up workshop and explore the possibility of setting up joint interdisciplinary research programs. An important outcome of the workshop was the identification of specific joint Water Institute-LabEx COTE research clusters, each of which anticipated applying for project funding to initiate new activities.
The three clusters identified were:
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Measuring and reducing risks of emerging contaminants
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Minimizing impacts of nutrients on receiving waters
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Role of economics in sustainable water management
The participation of the Water Institute in the 2016 workshop was funded by a Bordeaux-Waterloo Research Grant where eight Water Institute members participated in the delegation. In 2017, Water Institute graduate students participated in LabEx COTE’s interdisciplinary summer school on weak signals and emerging issues in ecological transition.
A year later, two writers’ workshops, one in Waterloo and one in Bordeaux, united researchers from the different scientific disciplines of environmental and earth sciences and economics. Entitled “Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Watershed and Coastal Zone Management”, these workshops helped prepare the writing of a 3-year project proposal within the framework of a Strategic Partnership Grant for Projects in the area of Environment and Agriculture financed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The resulting project, “Payments for Wetland Ecosystem Services as a Nature-Based Solution to Sustainably Manage Urbanized Watersheds,” was accepted in the summer of 2019 and brings together the principal investigators of the writers’ workshops, Brouwer and Professor Jean-Christophe Pereau (Professor of Economics - LabEx COTE, GREThA, University of Bordeaux).
Additionally, in 2019, Water Institute member Alain-Désiré Nimubona, professor in the Department of Economics, was appointed as a visiting Bordeaux professor.
For additional reading on this collaboration please refer to the article "Facing water management challenges with an interdisciplinary, international approach".