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Organization: IGRAC. Institutul de Geografie

Location: Bucharest, Romania

Field: Earth science

Requirements:

Recently obtained M.Sc. diploma in the field of geography, engineering geology, environmental science, geomorphology, natural hazards and risks. Good English (additional German language knowledge may be beneficial, as is Romanian or Polish). Strong background in geomorphology-geology, remote sensing and spatial information technology is beneficial. Field mapping skills as well as experience with statistical analysis, GIS and computer programming are an advantage.
It is expected, that the successful candidate will participate in all meetings and workshops organized by the group – related additional funding will be available. The candidate must also be willing to disseminate the results within the project during the meetings, but also and in particular through presentations at conferences and contributions to scientific journals. Frequent interaction with other researchers in the CHANGES network and an attitude for scientific inter-disciplinary research are important

Abstract:

A Ph.D position, financed by the European Community, is available within the European Marie Curie Initial Training Network “CHANGES”. The CHANGES network (Changing Hydro-meteorological Risks – as Analyzed by a New Generation of European Scientists) will develop an advanced understanding of how global changes (related to environmental and climate change as well as socio-economical change) will affect the temporal and spatial patterns of hydro-meteorological hazards and associated risks in Europe; how these changes can be assessed, modeled, and incorporated in sustainable risk management strategies, focusing on spatial planning, emergency preparedness and risk communication

Description:

Background: The main goal is to develop a method for constructing risk scenarios and maps taking into account the associate uncertainties. The research will focus on developing different-scale (regional scale for Buzau County, local scale for some case-studies within the county) risk scenario and spatial information methodologies, which should adapt for data-scarce environments the methodologies used in areas in which the available data allow detailed, quantitative assessments. Since the lack of data or the continuous need to adapt may induce a lot of uncertainties which may propagate along the inventory-susceptibility-hazard-risk succession of hydro-meteorological events, a special attention will be directed on this matter.

Objectives:
Of particular focus will be the following topics:
• Review of existing approaches (probabilistic and others)
• Data gathering (incl. field work, application of remote sensing, review of statistical information, etc.) for the environmental patterns (e.g. spatio-temporal inventories, DEM, geology, regolith, vegetation, hydrology, etc.) and socio-economic characteristics (e.g. economic assets, vulnerabilities and critical infrastructure incl. lifelines, built-up regions, land use, population data, etc.)
• Data analysis applying different methods for consequence analysis based on available hazard information;
• Risk analysis (economically-induced changes in land use, land cover, property size, ownership and EU subventions)
• Determination of related uncertainties, focusing on changing patterns.
The applied methods will include:
• Literature review
• Exploring characteristics, availability, and usability of different data from various sources
• Implementation of a spatial database
• Data manipulation within a GIS environment
• Basic statistical data exploration
The position implies research only, with no teaching obligations.
The main study area will be Buzau County (Romanian Curvature Carpathians). The developed methodology will also be applied in cooperation with other PhD projects in Austria, France, Italy and Poland.

Location: The work will be carried out for 36 months at the Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy (and subsequently at the Patarlagele Natural Hazards Research Center). Within this period, the candidate will join for 5 months each the University of Vienna (Austria) and geomer GmbH (Germany) for project-stated knowledge transfer activities.

Supervision: The research and the PhD will be supervised by Prof. Dan Balteanu (IGRAC), Prof. Thomas Glade (UNIVIE) and Dr. Stefan Jäger (geomer GmbH). The Ph.D. thesis will be submitted in English

Deadline: 01-04-2011

Contacts:

Link: http://www.geoinst.ro/

Link: http://www.itc.nl/changes

Email: igar@geoinst.ro

Phone number: 0040726560537

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