Jobs:Job-00075
Apply before: 31 January 2020
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Posting:
Position: PostDoc position
Apply before: 31 January 2020
Apply online:
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Project: Diagnosing drought for dealing with drought in 3D: Toolbox for increasing drought preparedness of actors in water and climate governance, starting from north-eastern Brazil (project website: http://3ddd.wur.nl).
To manage drought better, human influences on drought must be better understood. Current frameworks for drought monitoring and water accounting focus on the natural boundary conditions and therefore offer little help in distilling human influences on drought. This project combines insights from socio-hydrology and water management to produce an entirely new approach, incorporating the study of water-related human dimensions (D1), socio-hydrological dynamics (D2), and the structuring of dialogues (D3) among actors. The project will develop and test the integrated, participatory 3D Drought Diagnosis (3DDD) toolbox. We will investigate nested scale levels, related to local water resources and virtual-water transfers together with actor networks of users, managers, traders, and policymakers.
Test case is the semi-arid, drought-affected north-east of Brazil. The 3D Drought Diagnosis toolbox will be developed to extend existing drought monitoring frameworks to provide contextualized information in drought-affected regions worldwide. We will demonstrate how proposed drought management solutions perform with regard to cross-scale synergies and trade-offs in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2, 6, 10, and 13. With the support of national and international partners, our project will contribute to the development of the South American Drought Information System and the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Global Water Partnership (GWP).
Your tasks.
- Together with three PhD students you will develop and test an integrated, participatory 3DDD toolbox for providing actionable knowledge to improve water and climate governance, supported by drought monitoring frameworks. The toolbox will serve to increase drought preparedness of actors in multi-level water and climate governance.
- Using Integrated Assessment methods for drought management you will explore how best to support actors in north-eastern Brazil to move away from traditional crisis management, to a drought preparedness approach that is iterative and predicated on greater proactivity.
- Upscaling of tools and concepts for improving drought preparedness by proactive and inclusive governance in drought-affected regions worldwide. For this you will work together with international partners to contribute to the development of the South American Drought Information System and the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Global Water Partnership (GWP).
- Organising workshops for partners and other interested parties.
- Writing academic publications (in collaboration).
This project is a joint effort of Brazilian and Dutch partner organizations including: Wageningen University (The Netherlands); the Research Institute of Meteorology and Water Resources (Brazil); the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil) and the Brazilian Research Agricultural Corporation, National Research Tropical Agroindustry Center (Brazil).
REQUIREMENTS
- We are looking for a candidate with the following qualifications:
a doctorate degree (PhD) in hydrology, water resources management, agronomy or a related field;
- experience in dynamic systems modelling (crop models, hydrological models, and/or integrated assessment models);
- experience in publishing research output in academic journals and/or books;
- a creative, critical and collaborative person with an interest in interdisciplinary research;
- ability, willingness and commitment to collaborate in a research team and write joint publications;
- excellent oral and written communication in English, and good communication skills;
good knowledge of Portuguese would be an asset.
