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Subject: [cormas] Announcement of PhD opportunity
From: Bousquet (bousquet@cirad.fr)
Date: Wed Apr 25 2007 - 14:57:55 CEST
>
> We would like to announce the opportunity for the following PhD topic
> funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) of the UK:
>
> Title: Searching for sustainable land management strategies aimed at
> decoupling greenhouse gas emissions from economic performance
>
> Outline: One of the aims of the Scottish Executive's Climate Change
> Strategy is to decouple the link between carbon emissions and economic
> activity. The agriculture, forestry and the land use sector is important
> in that not only is it a contributor to the national economy, but it can
> act as a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as a carbon
> store. Various options for reducing the net emissions of GHGs from this
> sector have been proposed, including alternative 'carbon-neutral' energy
> crops, increased carbon sequestration through different ground covers and
> land management, reducing CH4 emissions from livestock, more efficient use
> of organic and inorganic fertilisers, and increased afforestation. Several
> of these options, however, involve a cost to the land manager, so that
> individual interests of making a livelihood conflict with societal goals
> of reducing GHG emissions. The proposed work will build on research
> currently funded by the Scottish Executive to model the emissions of CO2,
> CH4 and N2O from mineral soils as well as soils with high soil organic
> matter content common in Scotland. The innovative component of the
> proposed studentship will be the integration of this modelling activity
> with an agent-based modelling approach that attempts to simulate the
> factors influencing the decisions made by individual land managers. The
> work will contribute to a greater understanding of the land use strategies
> that may contribute to a decoupling of GHG emissions from economic
> performance. Although we will use Scotland as our case study, the findings
> will enhance our understanding of the link between economic activity and
> GHG emissions more broadly.
>
> Supervisors:
> Dr Robin Matthews, Macaulay Institute (r.matthews@macaulay.ac.uk)
> Professor Pete Smith, University of Aberdeen (pete.smith@abdn.ac.uk)
>
> Please contact Dr Robin Matthews or Professor Pete Smith for further
> details and for an application form.
>
> Apologies for any cross posting.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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