Interdisciplinary decision support for drained wetlands
Description:
Millions of hectares of northern peatlands have been drained for forestry, with new estimates of up to 1 million km of ditches in Sweden alone. Drainage has increased forest productivity in some, but not all areas. The future fate of these drainage ditches can be to: 1) clean them to ensure continued drainage, 2) ecologically restore them to a more natural state, or 3) leave them alone. The PhD student should develop a decision support tool to balance varying – and sometimes competing – ecosystem services based on new results from a side-by-side comparison of these three different management options at the Trollberget Experimental Area located within the long-term Krycklan Catchment Study (www.slu.se/Krycklan), along with scaled up measurements of ditches.
The PhD student will work with the research group to develop current GIS and modelling methods, potentially using AI methods to identify ditches, soils, and slopes to determine which ditches are the best candidates for ecological restoration, cleaning, or being left alone. The tool should take into account the GHG balance, biodiversity, water quality and quantity of ditches.
Apply no later than April 1, 2022. Find the official announcement and how to apply here:https://www.slu.se/en/about-slu/work-at-slu/jobs-vacancies/?rmpage=job&rmjob=6093&rmlang=UK
For additional information about this position, please contact:
Eliza Maher Hasselquist (eliza.hasselquist@slu.se) or
Anneli Ågren (anneli.agren@slu.se )
For more information about the department, please visit http://www.slu.se/en/departments/forest-ecology-management/.
Thanks for spreading this to your networks!
---------------------------------------
Eliza Maher Hasselquist
Researcher (Forskare)
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Umeå
mobile: +46 70 376 9515
eliza.hasselquist@slu.se
Umeå Campus representative
Twitter: @emhasselquist
Permanent email: eliza.hasselquist@gmail.com
