PostDoc in pan-tropical mapping of commodity-driven deforestation

The conversion of tropical forests and other natural ecosystems to cropland and pastures are a major driver of climate change and the loss of biodiversity and other ecosystem services. With unprecedented attention in recent years on curbing tropical deforestation - as evident from burgeoning commitments of companies, financial institutions and governments - there is an urgent need for accurate and actionable data on the role of global supply-chains in driving deforestation. As a PostDoc in this project you will help providing private and public decision-makers with such data, in collaboration with research partners at the forefront of mapping the supply-chains for forest-risk commodities.

Information about the project and the division
You will be funded by the project ReDUCE (Refining consumption-based estimates of Deforestation land-Use Change Emissions), which aims to improve existing estimates of commodity-driven deforestation and associated environmental impacts by leveraging state-of-the-art data on deforestation and agricultural land-use. It will build on the joint efforts of researchers at Chalmers and partners at Trase (www.trase.earth) to provide comprehensive data on the role of agricultural and forestry production, trade and consumption in driving deforestation, as well as to curate this data to further more effective policy responses and rid global supply-chains of embodied deforestation.

You will be placed at Physical Resource Theory, within the department of Space, Earth and Environment, and work within the land-use group at the division. The division of Physical Resource Theory carries out research in the field of technical and socio-economic systems addressing the challenges involved in the transition into a sustainable and low carbon society for a growing population, using a range of different quantitative and qualitative methods. The division's aspiration is to build challenge-driven scientific excellence by crossing traditional boundaries and increase the level of multi-disciplinarity in research.

- The details of the departmental research activities may be found here. 

Major responsibilities
You will be responsible for development of an existing pan-tropical model for attributing deforestation and associated carbon emissions to expanding agricultural and forestry land-uses (https://zenodo.org/record/5886600), data from which is currently used by NGOs, governments and private sector actors for assessing consumption-based deforestation footprints. The development will consist of increasing the spatial resolution of the model, by incorporating remote sensing data on agricultural land-use and deforestation for major forest-risk commodities (e.g., soybeans), detailed supply-chain data from the Trase initiative, and sub-national agricultural statistics for a broad set of countries. The sub-national data will also be used to provide improved estimates of the greenhouse gas emissions from peatland drainage. Combining these data with global trade models will allow us to estimate consumption-based land-use change emissions with higher granularity. You will also be engaging with key stakeholders and help curate the data to make it available to users, in order to contribute to more informed decisions by both private and public decision-makers.

Teaching may be included in position, up to 20% of full time. 

Qualifications
To qualify for this position you must have a PhD degree in a relevant topic (e.g., land-use science, geography, GIS or data science). The degree should have been awarded no more than three years prior to the application deadline (according to the current agreement with the Swedish Agency for Government Employers). You have excellent data management and/or modeling skills. Experience from working with geospatial data, as well as good skills in communication and data visualization, is meritorious.

The position requires sound verbal and written communication skills in English. Swedish is not a requirement but Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

Contract terms
This postdoc position is a full-time temporary employment for two years, with the possibility of extension by one year as postdoc and one year as researcher. 

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with Ref 20220352 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically and be attached as PDF-files, as below. Maximum size for each file is 40 MB. Please note that the system does not support Zip files.

CV: (Please name the document as: CV, Surname, Ref. number) including:
• CV, include complete list of publications
• Previous teaching and pedagogical experiences
• Two references that we can contact.

Personal letter: (Please name the document as: Personal letter, Family name, Ref. number)
1-3 pages where you:
• Introduce yourself
• Describe your previous research fields and main research results
• Describe your future goals and future research focus

Other documents:
• Attested copies of completed education, grades and other certificates.

Use the button at the foot of the page to reach the application form.

Application deadline: 2022-08-31

For questions, please contact:
Associate Professor, Martin Persson, Physical Resource Theory,
martin.persson@chalmers.se,
031-7722148

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. ***