PhD Greenhouse gas balance of fen meadow landscapes at the Water Systems and Global Change group

Are you fascinated by data on greenhouse gases? Do you have a background in eco-hydrology, micrometeorology, vegetation or soil science? And do you want to pursue a PhD at the leading university in the field of environmental science? The you are the candidate we are looking for!

Drained organic soils are an important source of greenhouse gases worldwide. Also in the low lying areas of the Netherlands drainage of its organic soils, with the aim to enable more intensive usage of the land, leads to oxidation of organic material, significant carbon dioxide release and subsequent land subsidence. As part of climate mitigation policies the Dutch government seeks to reduce these emissions by about 25% in 2030. In support of these policies, the National Research programme on Greenhouse gas emissions from Fenmeadow areas (in Dutch NOBV: https://www.nobveenweiden.nl/ ) aims to investigate the effects of various mitigation measures on total greenhouse gas balance of the targeted areas.

The Water Systems and Global Change group (WSG) of Wageningen University & Research has built up a considerable track record in studying interactions between greenhouse gas exchange, hydrology, land use, and climate (change). WSG contributes to the NOBV programme with (mobile) tower based eddy covariance measurements of greenhouse gas exchange at field scale and with airborne measurements using the same technique at regional scale. The measurement programme, while still expanding, already includes several operational sites with the longest records already spanning two years. At least two more years of monitoring are foreseen. These complement measurements at plot scale by other consortium members using a variety of techniques, enabling quantitative description and understanding of processes responsible for the production of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. One of the challenges for WSG is to link te various measurement scales to come up with distributed, wall-to-wall landscape budgets of these greenhouse gases.

As a PhD candidate, you will work on the following research topics (relative weight to be determined based on your interest and qualifications):

• design and implementation of (mobile) greenhouse gas monitoring strategies at field to regional scale in locations sampling the variety of organic soil types and associated land uses in the Netherlands
• processing and analysing the obtained high frequency eddy covariance data to greenhouse gas fluxes at diurnal to inter annual time scales;
• analyse and scale data from multiple locations and transects in relation to explanatory variables from vegetation and soil characteristics, land and water management and climate
• aim to ultimately provide data driven regional greenhouse gas balances for the different fen meadow areas of the Netherlands

Your work will consist of literature studies, analysis of in-situ greenhouse gas exchange data, as well as spatially distributed (satellite) data on vegetation, soil land and water qualities. You will be member of a larger team of scientists, including PhD candidates based at the partner universities, within and outside Wageningen UR working on this topic, and have interaction with various partners (water boards, land managers, policy makers, etc.) associated with land based greenhouse gas emissions. Your project results will be disseminated through papers in peer reviewed journals (as a basis of your PhD thesis) and conference proceedings, but using popular media is also encouraged.