Open PhD position

Peatland organic soil modelling (POSmod)

at Research and Innovation Centre-Fondazione Edmund Mach, Italy

segnalato da Matteo Sottocornola

We are currently recruiting a highly motivated PhD student to work on modelling carbon and water fluxes in peatland ecosystems. The project will build on existing long-term datasets from different peatlands in Italy, Ireland and Poland and aims to increase our understanding of these ecosystems functioning and on the impact of climate change on them.

The student will be mostly based in Italy, but will spend some months in Ireland and the US, working with Prof. Gerard Kiely (University College Cork, Ireland) and Prof. Steve Frolking (University of New Hampshire, US).

The work activities for the PhD candidate include the processing of CO2, CH4 and dissolved organic carbon data from the Monte Bondone peatland. The water fluxes from the same site will be studied by modelling the inflow and outflow of ground-water to the system, using the GEOtop model, measurements of precipitation and evapotranspiration and estimate of soil moisture/water table with the Cosmic Rays Neutron method. This work will be built over the experience of Gerard Kiely’s group in Ireland on the use of GEOtop, of Steve Frolking’s group in the US on the use of soil carbon and flux models and of FOX-lab on the Cosmic Rays Neutron method. The PhD candidate will also work on datasets from other peatlands to deepen our understanding on the present and future functioning of these ecosystems, including the fate of their soil carbon stock.

The deadline for submission of the application is the 24th May.

For more details and to apply, please go to the project list, of the Research and Innovation Centre-Fondazione Edmund Mach, and click on the project VGF_3.

Read info for application.