Organization: International Center for Tropical Agriculture
Country: Colombia
Closing date: 28 Apr 2017
Soils are the foundation for ecosystem services that support human life, healthy environments, and agricultural systems worldwide. Land use change impacts on soil ecosystem services include their effects on fertility, biodiversity and soil carbon. Understanding the dynamic variability of soils across the landscape is critical to assess the effects of agriculture and consequent land use change on ecosystem services. Digital soil mapping (DSM) provides a framework to develop accurate maps at high resolution using the most recent technologies (e.g., satellite images to determine land use and digital elevation models) associated with field data to provide high quality information and tools for adequate decision making at field and landscape level.
CIAT is seeking a student to work on developing digital soil property maps (physical and chemical) as a support tool for better decision making in the Eastern Plains savannas biome of Colombia. The student will be based at CIAT Headquarters in Palmira, Colombia for a period of 6 months. He/she will work with different tools of Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing (RS) and soil data (recollect legacy soil data and analyze new soil data) to develop accurate digital soil maps and their uncertainties.
Responsibilities:
· Search available data and organize database (e.g., soil data, digital elevation models, geology and soil maps)
· Conduct statistical analyses
· Develop digital soil maps (calibration, validation)
· Develop uncertainties maps of the digital soil maps developed
· Publish the results in international peer-review journal
Requirements:
· Knowledge of soils
· Knowledge of statistics
· Skills on GIS and RS
· Experience on R statistical package
· Good writing ability in English
This project could be a PhD chapter or Master’s thesis of the student.
How to apply:
Please send a short CV, and covering letter outlining your reasons for applying and why you think you would be a good fit. Please indicate in the SUBJECT field of the email “Student – Spatial Soil Information”.
Contact
Mayesse da Silva m.a.dasilva@cgiar.org with a copy to Glenn Hyman g.hyman@cgiar.org.
We invite you to learn more about us at: http://www.ciat.cgiar.org
