Funded PhD in water sustainability

The Mississippi River Basin (MRB) is the third largest river basin in the world, covering more than 40% of the conterminous United States. Agriculture is a vital part of the MRB economy, yet agricultural land use practices within the Basin have significantly impaired regional water availability. Widespread fertilizer use as well as intensive livestock production have led to increased nutrient pollution and degraded water quality throughout the MRB and the development of a large “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, while the extensive use of freshwater resources has led to growing water scarcity in the western part of the Basin. Understanding and addressing these issues related to both water quality and quantity is essential for ensuring the long-term sustainability of water resources in the MRB. Because agricultural land conservation policies influence water availability outcomes throughout the MRB, the effectiveness of these policies at jointly combatting water quality and quantity issues will, in part, determine the future of the region’s agricultural economy and environment.

Our work will quantitatively assess opportunities for water-smart land conservation across the MRB employing a convergence of diverse disciplinary perspectives from hydrology, environmental science, and economics. Our approach will first quantify the current state of streamflow depletion and nitrogen (N) pollution across the MRB. This analysis will serve as a baseline to then evaluate potentially achievable improvements in water quantity and quality through cropland conservation or wetland restoration. We will then model landowner participation in land conservation programs and identify spatial configurations of payments to best improve water availability outcomes across the MRB. Research objectives build towards an integrated, multi-scale approach to quantify water availability improvements under targeted payment configurations for land conservation.

The project team comprises researchers from the University of Delaware (Kyle Davis, PI), Penn State University (Kimberly Van Meter, Co-PI), Virginia Tech (Landon Marston, Co-PI), and USDA (Aaron Hrozencik, Co-PI). Graduate Assistants are being recruited to work within our interdisciplinary research project.

AVAILABLE POSITIONS

GRADUATE ASSISTANT 1

Location: University of Delaware, Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences or Department of Plant and Soil Sciences (Newark, DE)

Reporting PI: Dr. Kyle Davis (email: kfdavis@udel.edu; website: https://davis-lab.weebly.com/)

Start Date: Fall 2022

Position Type: PhD

Required Qualifications: i) Bachelor’s degree in a water-related science or engineering discipline, ii) Demonstrated ability to work effectively in an interdisciplinary team, iii) Proficiency   in oral and written communication in English.

Preferred Qualifications: i) Master’s degree in a water-related science or engineering discipline, ii) Hydrological modeling and/or coding experience (R, Python, Javascript), iii) Demonstrated experience with GIS, ‘big data’, and/or linear programming.

Project Responsibilities: The PhD position provides a competitive stipend, a tuition waiver, and subsidized health insurance. The student will work under the direct supervision of Dr. Kyle Davis and will interact and collaborate with a network of interdisciplinary scholars. Specific responsibilities will include (but are not limited to): (1) processing large volumes of environmental and socio-economic data, (2) running a national hydrological model, (3) performing spatial optimizations using linear programming, and (4) presenting findings at scientific meetings and through scientific publication. RA will be encouraged to develop their own dissertation research questions to pursue within the context of the project focus. 

If interested in this position: Email Kyle Davis (kfdavis@udel.edu) with your resume/CV and a short (2 page max) letter detailing your research interests and how you meet the required and preferred qualifications by November 15.

GRADUATE ASSISTANT 2

Location: Pennsylvania State University, Department of Geography (University Park, PA)

Reporting PI: Kimberly Van Meter (vanmeterkvm@psu.edu)

Start Date: Fall 2022

Position Type: PhD

Required Qualifications: Bachelor’s Degree in a field related to water or environmental science. Strong interest in bettering our understanding of human impacts on aquatic systems. 

Preferred Qualifications: M.S. degree. Experience with GIS, use of remote sensing data, and coding.

Project Responsibilities: The PhD position provides a competitive stipend, a tuition waiver, and subsidized health insurance. The student will work under the direct supervision of Dr. Kim Van Meter and will interact and collaborate with a network of interdisciplinary scholars. Specific responsibilities will include (but are not limited to): (1) Working with remote-sensing datasets to better identify restorable wetland area across the Mississippi River Basin, (2) Wetland modeling to improve our understanding of wetland-related nutrient fluxes, and (3) presenting findings at scientific meetings and through scientific publication. RA will be encouraged to develop their own dissertation research questions to pursue within the context of the project focus. 

If interested in this position: Email Kimberly Van Meter (vanmeterkvm@psu.edu) with your resume/CV and a short (2 page max) letter detailing your research interests and how you meet the required and preferred qualifications by November 15.