Colin Laroque

I was born and raised in Saskatoon and our family farm is near Duck Lake Sk.  I was first struck by science when I completed my undergraduate degree here at the U of S, and then I conducted both my Master's and Ph.D degrees on the west coast of Canada in Victoria. I then jumped all the way to the East coast of Canada to teach for ten years in the Maritimes.  I have now taken the opportunity to return to Saskatoon and complete my full circle back to the U of S.

Soil Science

School of Environment and Sustainability

Global Institute for Water Security

Department of Anthropology

My research interests focus on past and future climates in Canada, especially on how they relate to dynamic ecosystem and geomorpholgical processes. My specialization is dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis) and I use dendrochronological techniques to gain an understanding about past climates, past glacier activity and extents, past ecosystem dynamics, and even past human activities through dendroarchaeological and dendrochemical investigations.

Research web page: http://www.madlabsk.ca/

• Dendrochronology
• tree ring/soil relationships
• alpine and northern treed ecosystems
• environmental education

• Ph.D., University of Victoria 
• M.Sc., University of Victoria 
• B.Sc., University of Saskatchewan

Cline A.V., and Laroque, C.P. (2025). Below-ground carbon gradients surrounding Saskatchewan's native agricultural copses. Science of The Total Environment, 979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179525

Shefian E, Mood BJ, Belcher K, and Laroque, C.P. (2025). Assessing spatial distribution and quantification of native trees in Saskatchewan’s Prairie Landscape using remote sensing techniques. European Journal of Remote Sensing, 58: 2438638. DOI: 10.1080/22797254.2024.2438638

Mood, B.J. and Laroque, C.P. (2024) Forward modelling of white spruce radial growth at trailing edge demonstrates high plasticity. Science of the Total Environment, 957: 177695. . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177695

Lubiniecki, T., Lindenschmidt, K-E., Laroque, C.P. and and Rokaya, P. (2024). Determining ice-jam stage frequency distributions of an ungauged river reach using dendrogeomorphological data. International Journal of River Basin Management, 2024. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/15715124.2024.2301935

Lubiniecki, T., Laroque, C.P. and Lindenschmidt, K-E. (2023). Identifying Ice-Jam Flooding Events through the Application of Dendrogeomorphological Methods. River Research and Applications. May 17, 2023. DOI:  10.22541/au.168433204.48696573/v1

Canning, C.M., Laroque, C.P. and Muir, D. (2023). Critical Analysis of the Past, Present, and Future of Dendrochemistry: A Systematic Literature Review. Forests 2023, 14, 1997. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/f14101997

Perron, N., Baltzer, J. L., Detto, M., Nehemy, M., Spence, C., Hould‐Gosselin, G., Alcock, H., Hadiwijaya, B., Laroque, C.P. and Sonnentag, O. (2024). Radiation, air temperature, and soil water availability drive tree water deficit across temporal scales in Canada's western boreal forest. Geophysical Research Letters, 2024, 51, e2023GL107477. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL107477

Nehemy, M., Pierrat, Z., Maillet, J., Richardson, A., Stutz, J., Johnson, B., Helgason, W., Barr, A., Laroque, C.P. and McDonnell, J. (2023). Phenological assessment of transpiration: The stem-temp approach for determining start and end of season. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. Volume 331. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109319.

Canning, C., Mood, B., Bonsal, B., Howat, B., and Laroque, C.P. (2023). Comparison of tree-growth drought legacies of three shelterbelt species in the Canadian Prairies. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. Volume 330. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109317.

Nehemy, M., Maillet, J., Perron, N., Pappas, C., Sonnentag, O., Baltzer, J., Laroque, C.P. and McDonnell, J. (2022). Snowmelt water use at transpiration onset: Phenology, isotope tracing, and tree water transit time. Water Resources Research. Volume 58(9). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR032344.

• Lieutenant Governor’s post-secondary teaching award: Indigenous Teaching Excellence
• Undergraduate Research Mentor Award – Council on Undergraduate Research – Geosciences Award – The Geological Sciences of America
• AgBio Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence
• Provost’s Outstanding Teaching Award
• Recognition for Certificate in Sustainability program, Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development Saskatchewan
• 3M National Teaching Fellow, Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2013)
• Distinguished Teaching Award, Association of Atlantic Universities
• Herbert and Leota Tucker Teaching Award, Mount Allison University
• Paul Parè Excellence Award, Mount Allison University
• Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society

• EVSC 202 – Agricultural Climate Change in Saskatchewan
• EVSC 485.3/ENVS 401.3 Sustainability in Action
• SLSC 824.1 – Tree-Ring Systems Sampling and Measurement