PhD in land use modeling

The PhD student will further develop and apply a land use model, evoland-plus (pattern-based land use change model coupled with WASIM and FORCLIM), to forecast future changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services under various socio-economic and climate scenarios. The candidate will use both statistical and process-based approaches to better represent hydrology, forest dynamics and agricultural production and their effects on land use and ecosystem services. In particular, the candidate should be interested in applying the model to contribute to robust storylines of self-consistent plausible futures encompassing the physical and social dimensions of extreme climate outcomes. The results will be transformed into policy guidance reports and other documentation.

The Chair for Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS) at the Institute for Spatial and Landscape Planning, ETH Zurich, is a young, dynamic and interdisciplinary research team addressing problems of sustainable spatial and landscape development. The project will be carried out in a collaborative environment between WSL, Agroscope, and ETH Zürich, providing extensive technical know-how and interdisciplinary expertise in hydrology, forestry and agriculture.

• MSc degree in Land System Science, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Agricultural Science or related discipline

• Deep understanding of social-ecological systems

• Experience in programming

• Very good GIS skills

• Experience with ecosystem services modeling, forest dynamic modeling, hydrological modeling or species distribution modeling

• Interest in working on the interfaces between these topics

• Good command of English (both written and spoken)

• Willingness to communicate with and work in a large interdisciplinary project

• German or French is an advantage as a second language