The Athabasca oil sands, the world’s third largest oil reservoir, heavily rely on the Athabasca River Basin as its chief source of water. But how secure is that water flow? Research by Dr. Dave Sauchyn and Dr. Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques, both with the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC) at the U of R, and Dr. Brian Luckman from the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario suggest the oil industry and government need to plan for extended periods of low water flow. The research is published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Science,” one of the most cited scientific journals in the world. “This journal receives more than 18,000 submissions in a year but publish only about 17 per cent,” says Dr. Sauchyn.