Irena Creed

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Irena Creed
Alma materUniversity of Toronto (BS, MS, PhD)
Scientific career
FieldsHydrology, Biogeochemistry, Watershed Sciences, Climate Change, Planetary health, Ecosystem Services
InstitutionsWestern University, University of Guelph, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, University of Saskatchewan
ThesisThe Terrestrial Riparian Organisms, Lakes and Streams (TROLS) research project – effects of forest management activities on ecosystem health.

Irena Creed is the Associate Vice-President - Research at the University of Saskatchewan.[1][2] Formerly Creed was the Executive Director and a Professor at the School of Environment and Sustainability. Creed continues to study the impacts of global climate change on ecosystem functions and services, specifically focusing on the hydrology of freshwater catchments.

Education[]

Creed did her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Toronto. Creed graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology with a minor in Botany. She then went on to pursue a Master of Science in Botany and Environmental Sciences, and finally, a PhD in Geography. Creed then became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta where she studied forest management strategies and their impacts on surrounding ecosystems.

Career and research[]

From 1998 to 2017, Creed was a professor at Western University in the Biology and Geography departments. Now, Creed is the Executive Director of the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan.[2] Creed also remains an adjunct professor at Western University and also holds adjunct appointments at the University of Guelph and the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health.[3][4]

Creed's research is based in planetary health, both locally and globally. Specifically, Creed focuses on hydrology and the impacts of water on surrounding ecosystems. Creed's work is focused on involving water more in discussions of forest management.[5] Creed's work looks at the role of water in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, specifically focusing on the Saskatchewan and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basins. She led an unprecedented collaborative effort, the Great Lakes Futures Project, between researchers in the United States and Canada.[6] The project was a cross-disciplined assessment of future management practices of the Great Lakes area. Creed also works on a global scale and has participated in multiple international reports on climate change including one for the United States National Academy of Sciences and another for the Global Forest Expert Panel and the International Union of Forest Research Organisations.[7]

In 2019 Creed was elected to The Royal Society of Canada (RSC). This followed by Creed being the recipient of the RSC's Bancroft Award for outstanding contributions in earth sciences.[8]

Contributions[]

Creed has studied the hydrologic effects of nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. Using unique methodology and statistics, Creed and her team discovered the variation of nutrient deposition in catchments and release into atmosphere. This information was previously unknown to scientists, specifically that summer storms cause nitrogen to release into the atmosphere, explaining why catchments are often missing expected nitrogen in summer months.[9][10] Creed has shared this work both with other scientists as well as with policy makers who work on forest management.

Creed has also made a significant impact on the Great Lakes Region with her work on risk management, which combined science and policy.[11] This work utilized International Organization of Standardization tools in order to gain a better understanding of the risks associated with natural resource extraction in the region. Creed has used ISO tools in other work as well in order to access risk in ecosystem management techniques in a changing climate.[12]

References[]

  1. ^ "Univ. of Saskatchewan".
  2. ^ a b July 31, Saskatoon StarPhoenix Updated; 2017 (2017-07-31). "Irena Creed to lead School of Environment and Sustainability at U of S | Saskatoon StarPhoenix". Retrieved 2019-05-07.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ "Graduate Faculty Appointments March 2019". 2019.
  4. ^ "UNU-INWEH Team". UNU-INWEH. 2019-03-04. Retrieved 2019-05-14.
  5. ^ "Pay more attention to forests to avert global water crisis, researchers urge". Mongabay Environmental News. 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  6. ^ "Protecting and restoring the Great Lakes". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  7. ^ Cohen MJ, Creed IF, Alexander L, Basu NB, Calhoun AJ, Craft C, D'Amico E, DeKeyser E, Fowler L, Golden HE, Jawitz JW, Kalla P, Kirkman LK, Lane CR, Lang M, Leibowitz SG, Lewis DB, Marton J, McLaughlin DL, Mushet DM, Raanan-Kiperwas H, Rains MC, Smith L, Walls SC (February 2016). "Do geographically isolated wetlands influence landscape functions?". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (8): 1978–1986. doi:10.1073/pnas.1512650113. PMC 4776504. PMID 26858425.
  8. ^ "Royal Society of Canada" (PDF).
  9. ^ Creed IF, Band LE, Foster NW, Morrison IK, Nicolson JA, Semkin RS, Jeffries DS (1996-11-01). "Regulation of Nitrate‐N Release from Temperate Forests: A Test of the N Flushing Hypothesis". Water Resources Research. 32 (11): 3337–3354. doi:10.1029/96WR02399. ISSN 1944-7973.
  10. ^ Creed IF, Band LE (1998). "Export of nitrogen from catchments within a temperate forest: Evidence for a unifying mechanism regulated by variable source area dynamics". Water Resources Research. 34 (11): 3105–3120. doi:10.1029/98WR01924. S2CID 55714921.
  11. ^ Creed IF, Taylor WD, Sibley P, Gaden M, Luzadis V, Bunting-Howart K, eds. (2015). "The Great Lakes Futures Project: Using Scenario Analysis to Develop a Sustainable Socio-ecologic Vision for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin". Journal of Great Lakes Research. 41 (Supplement 1): 1–198. doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.017.
  12. ^ "Assessing the ecological sustainability of a forest management system using the ISO Bowtie Risk Management Assessment Tool | Request PDF". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2019-05-14.
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