项目介绍

2024年9月27日

Function

Are you keen to contribute to our future climate-resilient rivers and floodplains? Do you want to use your knowledge of Earth or Environmental Science to investigate the controls on and feedbacks with carbon storage in rivers and their floodplains? We are looking for a PhD candidate who will strengthen our team!

Europe’s ambitious new nature restoration law aims to restore 25,000 km of rivers for nature conservation, biodiversity enhancement, and climate change mitigation by 2030. Resilient river ecosystems with rich biodiversity demonstrate reciprocal relationships between physical processes and living organisms, which actively shape their environment and influence carbon fluxes. River-floodplains play a substantial role in the global carbon cycle by storing a significantly larger amount of carbon per area compared to surrounding land.

As a PhD candidate your aim is to gain insights into how the hydro-geomorphic context influences the effects biota has on river-floodplain dynamics and carbon sequestration. You will identify the key locations for long-term carbon storage in river valleys, and you will quantify soil carbon sequestration in river reaches across a hydro-geomorphic gradient, ranging from mountainous/semi-confined to flat/unconfined segments. The project aims at considering carbon flux across various time scales (from millennial to seasonal), and hence gathers information on atmospheric and water carbon flux, as well as on past and present soil and biomass-related carbon content from the selected research sites.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• developing your own research proposal
• conducting field research in different regions in Europe to analyse short-term and long-term river-floodplain dynamics and their physical and biotic controls.
• quantifying carbon fluxes and sequestration.
• analysing which key hydro-bio-geomorphic factors control carbon sequestration in river-floodplains.  
• assessing where and how river segments may be restored that have a high potential to sequester carbon, in collaboration with societal partners
• writing multiple scientific publications and practitioner oriented publications. The scientific publications will be part of a PhD dissertation;
• presenting at and organizing webinars and project conferences for different audiences  

You will work here
Your PhD research will be embedded within the Soil Geography & Landscape group, where a lot of research is done on nature-based solutions to support future climate-resilient landscapes. The group has a strong network with societal partners that will benefit your PhD research. This environment gives you all opportunities to develop new skills and kick-start your academic career. You will be supervised by dr. Annegret Larsen and dr. Jasper Candel.

Function Requirements

You have:

• A completed (or about to be completed) MSc degree in Earth Sciences or Environmental Sciences,
• A keen interest in biophysical aspects of landscapes such as river-floodplain interactions, nature-based solutions and biota;
• Preferably some experience with hydrogeomorphological methods, for example: stratigraphic correlation, dating methods, or/and experience with monitoring carbon flux
• Preferably strong in analyzing large datasets.
• Creativity and intrinsic motivation for pursuing a PhD project;

You also possess:

• Affinity with pursuing fieldwork in Europe;
• Interest and ability to work independently as well as in a interdisciplinary team with scientists from various disciplines and with (societal) stakeholders;
• Collaborative and organizational skills.
• Strong writing skills and English language proficiency;

The English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognised Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here

Contactinformation

For more information about this position, please contact Jasper Candel, jasper.candel@wur.nl or Annegret Larsen , annegret.larsen@wur.nl

For more information about the procedure, please contact Noorien Abbas, corporate recruiter, by email: recruitment.ssg@wur.nl