Nicole Balliston

Dr. Nicole Balliston is a wetland ecohydrologist and Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at Laurentian University, where she leads the Wetland Integrity and Landscape Dynamics Lab. Her research focuses on how water moves through wetland landscapes, from pore- to watershed scales. She is especially interested in the role of wetlands in buffering climate impacts, regulating water quality, transporting carbon and contaminants, and shaping the health of downstream lakes, rivers, and coastal systems. Her research is largely field-based and grounded in multi-year, collaborative studies in northern landscapes, bringing together hydrology, ecology, biogeochemistry, geospatial analysis, hands-on field problem solving, and a healthy dose of humour and humility to better understand these beautiful and complex places.

At the heart of Nicole’s work is a deep love of spending time on the land and sharing that experience with others. Her northern research has centred on the Hudson Bay Lowlands, which she still remembers falling in love with on her first, very turbulent plane ride north. This landscape forms the world’s second-largest peatland complex and offers a rare glimpse into broad, relatively uninterrupted wilderness. Nicole finds particular joy in bringing students to these lands for the first time and seeing them find their own spark of curiosity, confidence, and connection to wetlands and northern waters.

Through collaborative field programs, monitoring, mapping, and knowledge sharing, her research supports questions about wetland integrity, watershed change, and the future of northern waters. Her lab is also bringing this perspective closer to home through work on Greater Sudbury wetlands, where questions of recovery, legacy impacts, and landscape resilience are central to understanding the future of local wetland systems.

PhD
University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON) – 2022
Geography and Environmental Management

Thesis: A changing North: The implications of high-volume groundwater extraction and reduced water availability on sub-arctic peatland hydrology, connectivity, and geochemistry

MSc
University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON) – 2017
Geography and Environmental Management — Water

BASc
University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON) – 2013
Honours Environmental Engineering, Co-op, Water Resources Option

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Balliston, N., Hathaway, J., Vogel, M., Finkelstein, S. & Strack, M. Structural Complexity and Preferential Flowpaths Govern Connectivity and DOC Export in a Remote Boreal Headwater Peatland Complex. Submitted to Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. EGUSPHERE-2026-3284.

He, H., Emilson, E., Balliston, N., Ledger, K., Barreto, C., Morison, M., Guzzi, A., Kuzyk, Z. Z., Papakyriakou, T., Bona, K., Cassidy, A., Hararuk, O., & Webster, K. Dissolved organic carbon in the Hudson Bay Lowlands: a regional synthesis and implication for the carbon budget. Submitted to Carbon Balance and Management.

Davies, M. A., Balliston, N., Bona, K. A., & Strack, M. (2026). Substrate addition alters carbon dioxide and methane fluxes in incubation experiments of Canadian peatland soils. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 40(3). https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GB008896

Kendall, R. A., Goud, E. M., Davidson, S. J., Balliston, N., Estey, C., Gauthier, T. L., ... & Strack, M. (2025). Intraspecific trait variability in four geographically widespread peatland plant species in Canada. Flora, 152797. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.flora.2025.152797

Balliston, N. E., Davies, M. & Strack, M. (2025). Assessing the impacts of near-surface disturbance and water table manipulation on hydrophysical properties and greenhouse gas fluxes in fen peat soils. Ecohydrology, 18, e70025. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.70025

Webster, K., Strack, M., Balliston, N. E., Davies, M., Hettinga, K., Hunter, M., Kleinke, K., & Schmidt, M. (2025). Data and knowledge needs for improving science and policy for peatlands in Canada in a changing world: Insights from Global Peatlands Initiative Workshop, June 2023. Facets. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2024-0142

Sutton, O., Balliston, N. E., & Price, J. S. (2024). Mining and climate change alters water storage and streamflow dynamics of northern peatland-dominated catchments. Water Resources Research, 60(12). https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR037310

Elmes, C. E., Balliston, N. E., Davis, E. L., & Price, J. S. (2024). Assessing the effects of resource extraction and climate-related disturbances on the growth of Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P. (Pinaceae) in boreal peatlands in the Hudson Bay Lowland, Canada. Mires and Peat, 31. https://doi.org/10.19189/MaP.2023.OMB.Sc.2122293

Balliston, N., Sutton, O., & Price, J. (2024). Solute depletion and reduced hydrological connectivity in subarctic patterned peatlands disturbed by mine dewatering. Science of The Total Environment, 913, 169442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169442

Balliston, N. E., & Price, J. S. (2023). Aquifer depressurization and water table lowering induces landscape scale subsidence and hydrophysical change in peatlands of the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Science of The Total Environment, 855, 158837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158837

Morris, P. J., Davies, M. L., Baird, A. J., Balliston, N., Bourgault, M. A., Clymo, R. S., ... & Wilkinson, S. L. (2022). Saturated hydraulic conductivity in northern peats inferred from other measurements.  Water Resources Research, e2022WR033181. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033181

Balliston, N., & Price, J. S. (2022). Beyond fill and spill: Hydrological connectivity in a sub-arctic bog-fen-tributary complex in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada. Hydrological Processes, e14575. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14575

Bechtold, M., De Lannoy, G. J. M., Reichle, R. H., Roose, D., Balliston, N., Burdun, I., Devito, K., Kurbatova, J., Strack, M., & Zarov, E. A. (2020). Improved groundwater table and L-band brightness temperature estimates for Northern Hemisphere peatlands using new model physics and SMOS observations in a global data assimilation framework. Remote Sensing of Environment, 246, 111805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.111805

Balliston, N. E., & Price, J. S. (2020). Heterogeneity of the peat profile and its role in unsaturated sodium chloride rise at field and laboratory scales. Vadose Zone Journal, 19(1), e20015. https://doi.org/10.1002/vzj2.20015

Balliston, N. E., McCarter, C. P. R., & Price, J. S. (2018). Microtopographical and hydrophysical controls on subsurface flow and solute transport: A continuous solute release experiment in a subarctic bog.  Hydrological Processes, 32(19), 2963–2975. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13236

Book Chapters

Balliston, N. E., Artz, R., Couwenberg, J., Gauthier, T.-L., Huth, V., Jurasinski, G., Lampela, M., Laine-Petäjäkangas, A., Maanavilja, L., Peacock, M., Purre, A.-H., Swails, E., Wilson, D. & Renou-Wilson, F. (2023). Peatland restoration, rewetting and greenhouse gas balances. In M. Strack (Ed.), Peatlands and Climate Change (2nd ed., pp. 308–358). IPS, International Peat Society, Jyvaskyla, Finland.