Vincent Fortin

Scientific Researcher - Hydrological Forecasting

Develop automated systems that:

- continuously estimate the quantity of precipitation falling over the canadian territory

- estimate and forecast water levels and flows, with an emphasis on transboundary waters

Current research and/or projects

My work contributes to providing reliable information on the current and future state of various elements of the water cycle (precipitation, snow on the ground, soil moisture, water levels and flows), which increases the safety and efficiency of Canadian watershed management practices, and in particular of transboundary watersheds, when atypical situations occur (droughts, flooding, spilling of hazardous material).

Research and/or project statements

  • Development of hydrological and hydrodynamic forecasting sytems
  • Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA)
  • Parameterization of hydrological processes in surface schemes
  • Hydrological data assimilation

Professional activities / interests

Education and awards

Ph.D. in hydrology, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Quebec City (1997)

Geoff Howell Citation of Excellence for Innovation (2012, 2016)

Key publications

Durnford, D., V. Fortin, G. Smith, B. Archambault, D. Deacu, F. Dupont, S. Dyck, E. Klyszejko, J.-F. Lemieux, M. Mackay, L. Liu, P. Pellerin, A. Pietroniro, F. Roy, V. Vu, B. Winter, W. Yu and Y. Martinez (2017). Towards an operational water cycle prediction system for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Accepted for publication.

Gaborit, É., V. Fortin, X. Xu, F. Seglenieks, B. Tolson, L.M. Fry, T. Hunter, F. Anctil and A.D. Gronewold (2017). A Hydrological Prediction System Based on the SVS Land-Surface Scheme: Implementation and Evaluation of the GEM-Hydro platform on the watershed of Lake Ontario. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 21: 4825–4839.

Alavi, N., S. Bélair, V. Fortin, S. Zhang, S.Z. Husain, M.L. Carrera and M. Abrahamowicz (2016). Warm Season Evaluation of Soil Moisture Prediction in the Soil, Vegetation and Snow (SVS) Scheme, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 17: 2315–2332.

Fortin, V., G. Roy, N. Donaldson and A. Mahidjiba (2015). Assimilation of radar quantitative precipitation estimations in the Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA). Journal of Hydrology, 531(2): 296–307.