Position: PhD in agricultural resilience and ecosystem services Project Overview
As climate changes increasingly affect agriculture, farmers and policy makers are challenged by how to best address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Central to this challenge is developing agroecosystems that do not degrade water quality, increase landscape flood resiliency, and mitigate agricultures contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, all while remaining economically viable. This interdisciplinary project aims to evaluate the ecological and economic impacts of alternative agricultural management practices with the goals of enhancing agricultural ecosystem services and resilience to climate change. We seek a student to work with our team to quantify and model carbon and nutrient storage and loss in conventional and alternative agricultural management systems (pasture and cropland). This work will allow us to investigate the potential for agricultural systems to both be productive (from the farmers perspective) and provide valuable services including water purification and climate regulation. Responsibilities Duties will include identifying novel study questions within the larger project and working with our team of scientists, graduate and undergraduate students to quantify carbon, nutrient and water fluxes from agricultural sites that directly compare conventional and alternative management systems. Because climate change has large impacts on precipitation patterns and wintertime dynamics (e.g., large rainfall events, mid-winter warm periods, spring thaw), fieldwork may occur through all four seasons. This position includes guaranteed funding for a four year research assistantship, which may be extended via teaching assistantships. Interested applicants should submit a CV, letter of interest (including relevant research interests), names and contact information of three references to Carol Adair. Carol Adair RSENR, University of Vermont carol.ad...@uvm.edu, 802.656.2907 http://adairlab.weebly.com/ http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/cadair/
