Estimates of Canadian Arctic Archipelago runoff from observed hydrometric data

SummarySmall basin studies in the remote Canadian Arctic Archipelago have revealed the general nature of runoff processes and the annual rhythms and magnitude of streamflow in the region, but widespread monitoring of hydrological cycle components is absent. The result is that an understanding of large scale freshwater fluxes from the Arctic Archipelago does not exist. Such understanding is important for sound domestic water management decisions and international obligations to quantify Canada’s freshwater supply to the oceans. The study summarized by this paper, initiated under the auspices of the International Polar Year, extrapolated observed streamflow attributes across the Arctic Archipelago using statistical regionalization tools. The paucity of hydrometric data necessitated the construction of a dataset, which was limited to the period from 1972 to 1994. Reliable estimates of mean May–October freshwater flux were possible from ∼70% of the Archipelago and these total ∼190 km3. Maximum daily runoff can be up to 13% of the total annual flux from some catchments. Flows were highest from southern Baffin Island, decreasing westward. The scarcity of data compelled an error analysis that showed average confidence intervals around constructed and regionalized data of ±123% and ±63%, respectively. Dataset construction errors were inversely related to basin area. There was no spatial pattern to the dataset construction errors, but regionalization error tended to be higher in the west. It will be argued that our community has little to no idea of the current freshwater flux from the Arctic Archipelago, or if it is changing. Much work is needed to improve these estimates, including establishing a sustainable, effective and efficient monitoring and research program of high arctic freshwater systems that can build upon the legacy of the International Polar Year.