University of Western Australia
Applications will be accepted until suitable candidate has
been found.
An APAI (Australian Postgraduate Award Industry) scholarship is
available for the project entitled Ecohydrological Feedbacks
Between Vegetation and Soil in Natural and Engineered Landforms in
Arid Australia
This multidisciplinary project is based in the Schools of Earth
and Geographical Sciences and Plant Biology, The University of
Western Australia, with close collaboration with Newcrest’s
Telfer Gold Mine operation. It is further linked to Curtin
University of Technology (Western Australia), Newcastle University
(New South Wales), and Duke University (North Carolina, USA). The
scholarship will be available when the research agreement has been
signed.
The annual stipend under the APAI program is currently in excess
of $25,000 (tax exempt). Only Australian citizens or Australian
residents with permanent resident status are eligible (New Zealand
permanent residents are eligible).
We are seeking a highly motivated PhD student to work on the
experimental assessment of the water balance at the hillslope scale
using various methods including geophysical techniques such as
electrical resistivity tomography. The student will work as part of
a team consisting of soil scientists, geophysicists,
geomorphologists, plant ecophysiologists and ecologists.
Experimental sites will be set up in the Great Sandy Desert to
assess vegetation and soil feedbacks by quantifying the surface and
subsurface water balance as function of landscape position and
vegetation type, density and pattern.
A background in environmental engineering, physics, mathematics,
soil science, earth sciences, hydrology, or environmental sciences
is desirable.
Contact: Dr Christoph Hinz
Tel: 08 6488 3466 Fax: 08 6488 1050
Email: christoph.hinz@uwa.edu.au.
