Dear ESP community,
We are offering an open PhD position at the Estonian University of Life Sciences on Data-driven modelling of human activity on ecosystems sustainability. If you or some of your students is interested, please do not hesitate to contact Miguel Villosada. There are only two weeks left to apply for the position! See details below.
Data-driven modelling of human activity on ecosystems sustainability
The main experience we expect from the PhD candidate is on the fields of remote sensing data, GIS, and also good data analyzing skills. Programming and data mining skills are encouraged. Candidates from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds are welcome to apply. The increasing human activity through industry and urbanization has a great impact on ecosystems and climate change. Understanding the relations between those impacts and how ecosystems react to them is essential for sustainability reasons. Large-scale change in environment can cause serious damage on animal population, biodiversity and alter ecosystem processes. It is critical to protect existing ecosystem, but also take into consideration the human interests. The thesis will study the relations between human activities and the changes in ecosystems due to that activities. Student will develop data-driven models to predict the impact of certain changes in ecosystems that have a critical impact on wildlife, plants and humans themselves. Using satellite information, optical and LiDAR sensors data from drones and in-situ measurements, student can analyze and model the behavior of ecosystems due to the anthropogenic impact. The end-result of the thesis is a data-driven model(s) that will help to describe and predict the behavior of ecosystems due to the increasing anthropogenic impact and propose next steps towards sustainable protection of those ecosystems.