Alain Pietroniro

Biography

Dr. Alain Pietroniro is an internationally recognized expert in hydrology and sustainable water systems, who has spent almost three decades studying water resources engineering. A full Professor of Civil Engineering at University of Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering, Dr. Pietroniro’s research is focused on improving, developing and evaluating hydrologic models, understanding the sensitivity of water resources to climate variability and change, and developing the next generation of hydrological modelling systems. Dr. Pietroniro is the former Executive director for the National Hydrological Service within the Meteorological Service of Canada which included the management of the Water Survey of Canada. Those duties focused on managing the operations of the WSC which included over 2300 hydrometric stations and 11 agreements with the provinces and territories. It also included engineering services relate to both the hydrometric measurements, water management and governance programs of the MSC, including carrying out orders outlined in 14 US/Canada bi-national water treaties that overseen by the International Joint commission. He had been in that position from 2006-2020 and prior, was a research scientist at the National Hydrology Research Institute for 15 years. He has overseen model development leading or managing work related to hydraulic modeling, coupled numerical weather modeling and development of a space-based hydrology plan. Over the course of his career, Dr. Pietroniro has published over 90-refereed scientific journal papers, about 150 conference abstracts, led the publication of 21 manuscripts and workshop proceedings on applications of geomatics in hydrology, and 2 book chapters on surface water remote sensing. Dr. Pietroniro also is involved in developing innovative frameworks for linking hydrological and atmospheric models. This includes using various geomatics and isotopic techniques to establish hydrological pathways and improved water resources modeling results. Dr. Pietroniro is a registered professional engineer in the province of Saskatchewan.