PhD student wildfire risk assessment and fire propagation (100%)

Descrizione

PhD student wildfire risk assessment and fire propagation (100%) Sintesi in italiano (traduzione automatica): L'organizzazione cerca un dottorando per un progetto di ricerca sulla valutazione del rischio di incendi boschivi e la propagazione del fuoco, da svolgersi presso il Centre for Environmental Sciences (CMK) in Flanders. Il candidato si occuperà di sviluppare un modello di propagazione del fuoco calibrato localmente, analizzando dati spaziali e collaborando con vari stakeholder. Sono richieste competenze quantitative e di programmazione (R o Python), esperienza in modellazione spaziale ed ecologica, e capacità di lavorare con grandi dataset. Il dottorando parteciperà attivamente a congressi internazionali e scriverà articoli scientifici, con l'obiettivo di redigere una tesi di dottorato. È necessaria una laurea in scienze ambientali o un campo correlato. Your function Wildfires have significant socio-economic and ecological impacts, posing risks to human lives, buildings, ecosystem services and biodiversity values. In Europe, areas with increased danger are being pushed north by climate change. Even though many industrialized countries have implemented fire management strategies, formal risk assessment systems are lacking in many regions, including Flanders. Pan-European initiatives are hampered by coarse spatial resolution, often underestimating local fire dynamics and overlooking the need for region-specific assessments. Without this locally contextualised accuracy, the reliable prediction of fire propagation and optimization of resource deployment remains severely constrained. Five PhD students will perform research to meet FireRisk’s core objectives: - the development of a locally calibrated fire spread model that accounts for land management and design scenarios (PhD 1) - the generation of near-real-time, high-resolution maps of fuel loads, fuel moisture, microclimate conditions, and fire weather indices for improved wildfire risk assessment and management (PhD 2) - understanding how land management and landscape design influence wildfire risk and post-fire ecosystem resilience (PhD 3) - the translation of scientific outputs into actionable frameworks for both operational decision-making and long-term governance (PhD 4) - the enhancement of first responder training through high-fidelity 3D visualization (PhD 5). The vacant research position corresponds to the abovementioned ‘PhD 1’ in the FireRisk project. More specifically, you will combine spatial data science with environmental modelling to generate the first high-resolution assessment of the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) and wildfire risks in Flanders. During the first year, you will analyse high-resolution geodatasets and collaborate with various stakeholders to establish locally tailored definitions and maps of interface and intermix WUIs where human infrastructure meets natural vegetation. In the subsequent years, you will combine these insights with predictive modelling and select, train, and validate process-based or deep-learning fire propagation models using a.o. detailed information about topography, meteorology, and historical fire events. Ultimately, you will use this model to simulate various land management scenarios and mitigation measures, translating complex spatial data into an actionable decision-support tool for regional fire prevention and climate resilience. The position requires strong quantitative and programming skills (R or Python), experience with spatial and ecological modelling, and the ability to work with large datasets. You will collaborate with the FireRisk-consortium (including the other PhD researchers) and international partners. You will conduct research, write and publish scientific articles, actively participate in international and national congresses/meetings and participate in the doctoral school of Sciences and Technology, with the aim of writing a doctoral dissertation. Your team The Centre for Environmental Sciences (CMK) is a multidisciplinary research institute bringing together 227 researchers from 38 nationalities across six research groups. CMK focuses on fundamental and applied environmental research, as well as industrial collaboration, to address complex societal challenges that require interdisciplinary approaches. Research at CMK spans multiple domains, including understanding environmental influences on organisms, developing and assessing sustainable technologies to mitigate environmental impacts, and monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem services under stress conditions such as climate change. Annuncio in inglese. Fonte: Euraxess (Commissione europea).