Please note that there is a vacant PhD-position in Remote Sensing for Soils at the Earth and Life Institute of UCLouvain (Belgium) - HERE.
The Earth and Life Institute invites applications for a 4-year fully funded PhD studentship on Remote Sensing for Soils within project 116 of the Plan de Relance de la Wallonie.
The student will develop a system for high resolution mapping soil organic carbon (SOC) at the field scale covering the entire Walloon territory. The focus will be on croplands as these are most vulnerable to SOC loss. The system should be based on Earth Observation data calibrated and validates by regional soil data bases and should be able to provide up-to-date SOC maps every 3-5 years. Both the current generation of satellites in the Copernicus program such as Sentinel 2 and Sentinel 1 as well as the upcoming generation of hyperspectral satellites such as PRISMA and EnMAP will be used. This project fits within an ensemble of projects such as the Worldsoils project financed by the European Space agency, an upcoming project on monitoring reporting and verification of carbon farming financed by the European Commission and a number of projects the state of the soil financed by the Walloon Region.
We welcome applications from early career scientists having a MSc. degree in geography, agronomy or a related discipline by the appointment start date. We look for a highly motivated PhD student with an affinity for remote sensing and digital soil mapping. Additional experience in machine learning using R or Python algorithms is an asset. Successful applicants should be willing to work as part of a diverse and multidisciplinary team, and have excellent written and oral communication skills in English. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Bas van Wesemael and Pierre Defourny. The target starting date is March 2023, but can be flexible.
Interested?
The application should be sent in one single PDF including a motivation letter, a curriculum vitae and contact information for two referees. Review of applications will begin in January 15, 2023 and continue until the position is filled. Applications are accepted through email to Bas.vanwesemael@uclouvain.be (and indicating ‘PhD student PRW116’ as subject).