Postdoc position on 'Modelling water quality Ganges/Brahmaputra' (1.0 FTE)

The Department of Earth Sciences is now looking for a highly-motivated applicant to fill a postdoctoral research position on 'Modelling water quality of the Ganges/Brahmaputra’.
The study is a work package of a collaboration project between the Netherlands and India called 'Co-creating Sustainable Agri-Water Use in the Hindon Sub-Basin –A Multi-Scale Participatory Approach'. The focus of the whole project is the Hindon sub-basin, part of the Gangetic Plain, which suffers from water depletion and pollution due to over-extraction and emissions of nutrients and pesticides. The contribution of agriculture and other sectors to reduced water quantity and quality will be determined by monitoring and modelling. Alternative agricultural management options to improve water use efficiency and to reduce emissions by agriculture will be identified. These will be evaluated and visualised at the levels of fields, farms, landscapes, and the whole sub-basin. A vision of future development will be formulated and steps for its implementation will be identified and started.

The current position aims to investigate water quality (nitrate, pesticides and heavy metals) for future decades for the whole Ganges/Brahmaputra basin through modelling with the Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment (IMAGE) - Dynamic Global Nutrient Model (DGNM) framework fed with data from other partners in this project. Work will consist of preparation of agriculture, industry and other economic data at the level of the states/regions of India for running DGNM for the historic period and preparation of scenarios for future decades. Next to applying the model, new approaches for simulating heavy metals and pesticides will be developed. The position is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The research team members include Prof. Dr Lex Bouwman and Dr Arthur Beusen at the Department of Earth Sciences, Geochemistry group. The research will be performed at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.