The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is part of the ETH Domain. Approximately 600 people work on the sustainable use and protection of the environment and on the handling of natural hazards.
The Research Unit Forest Dynamics assesses the effects of changing environmental conditions on forest ecosystem functioning. In the Research Group Ecosystem Ecology we offer a 2-year position (with option of extension for 1 year) as
Postdoc in “Nowcasting drought stress indices in European forests” 80-100% (f/m/d)
Climate change and other environmental stressors such as air pollution create increasing pressure on forest ecosystems. Pan-European monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of climate change on forests are crucial and the ambition of the EU H2020 project FORWARDS.
Within this EU project the target of your post-doc position will be to nowcast drought stress of forests at several sites in Europe in close collaboration with TreeNet.info. Based on high resolution, near real-time dendrometer, soil and microclimate data you will establish a daily operational data processing pipeline to run simulations and merge it with other data sources. Further, you implement physically based models and develop statistical and machine learning models to derive drought stress proxies for display at a webpage and as an input to the ForestWard Observatory. Finally, you publish the results in international journals and present the results at conferences.
You hold a PhD degree in ecophysiology, hydrology, or in a data science discipline. You have a strong motivation to deal with the mechanisms of the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum of forests and you are ready to entre new fields. We expect excellent programming skills in R or Python and experience with visualization tools like Shiny. Additionally, you are experienced in handling and managing large data sets. Good skills in scientific writing are essential. You are ambitious, used to a high standard of independent, structured, and careful work, and have a high level of self-motivation and good team spirit.
Please send your complete application to Stefania Pe, Human Resources WSL, by uploading the requested documents through our webpage. Applications via email will not be considered. Katrin Meusburger and Roman Zweifel, (Katrin.Meusburger@wsl.ch; Roman.Zweifel@wsl.ch ) will be happy to answer any questions or offer further information. The WSL strives to increase the proportion of women in its employment, which is why qualified women are particu-larly called upon to apply for this position.