PhD student "New generation of pedotransfer functions including soil structural properties" in Zürich

The Soil and Terrestrial Environmental Physics (STEP), a research group of the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS) at ETH Zurich, has a position to fill starting in September 2018 as a

The representation of land-surface properties in Earth system and climatic models rely on soil hydraulic functions estimated from simpler soil properties. Recent advances in soil information integration yield global soil maps at an unprecedented resolution that could be harnessed to estimate soil hydraulic functions using statistically based pedotransfer functions (PTF). The PTF’s employ easy-to-measure soil properties such as texture, bulk density and organic matter to predict soil hydraulic functions. The sampling, measurement and interpretation of PTF’s often avoid representation of soil structure and its critical impact on soil hydraulic function. The core objective of this PhD study is to incorporate soil structural effects into PTFS of soil hydraulic functions and improve scale-informed inferences of hydraulic functions such that large scale processes are represented (e.g., representing large scale infiltration). The successful candidate will develop a new generation of PTF’s that employ large-scale considerations and advanced machine-learning methods to derive PTF’s.

The STEP research group is well established in areas of vadose zone hydrology, the quantification of soil structural dynamics (see http://www.sso.ethz.ch/soil-structure-observatory-3.html), and evaporation processes. With this PhD thesis we extend our scale of interest from plot and catchment scale to global estimates. The PhD student will determine the role of soil structure on various hydraulic functions and link them to soil properties and vegetation (a surrogate for impact of soil biological activity on structure).

We look forward to receiving your online application including CV, a motivation letter and two reference names. Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.