What you will be doing

Water plays a central role in the Dutch landscape and water levels are tightly controlled with the aim of optimizing agricultural production and protecting urban areas. Current water management schemes conflict with a sustainable and nature-inclusive land use given that the biodiversity and functioning of natural wetlands require high and fluctuating water levels. Moreover, the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, despite their regulation, leads to biodiversity loss and has adverse impact on human health. The resulting eutrophication leads to biodiversity loss in aquatic systems, which is expected to further reduce their functioning, and thereby resistance and resilience to climate change. With ongoing climate change more drought periods are expected, therefore the sandy-soil landscapes are under high pressure to continue their functions.

Next to climate change and biodiversity loss, also demography is changing over the next decennia. For the Netherlands, this includes an increase in population, shift in age structure towards more elderly people, and movement of citizens from cities to countryside. Integrating scenarios for demography with those for climate change and biodiversity is required to understand potential futures yet hardly studied so far.

The aim of this project is to set up a transdisciplinary study to establish how land and water use practices are interacting with landscape scale biodiversity, water quality, and societal health and wellbeing. The project starts from current conditions and incorporates future scenarios of climate, biodiversity, and societal conditions up to 2050.

Job requirements:

• The candidate should hold a PhD with a background in environmental sciences, aquatic ecology, socioecology, or related fields
• Experience or strong interest in scenario development
• Able to work in a team and coordinate a transdisciplinary project
• Being creative and affinity with conceptual thinking
• Professional working proficiency in English, including scientific writing

Fixed-term contract: 30 maanden.

Arbeidsvoorwaarden
Het salaris bedraagt afhankelijk van opleiding en ervaring minimaal [[salarisMin]] en maximaal [[salarisMax]] bruto per maand bij een full time dienstverband (schaal [[ufoSchaal]] cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW) . Dit is exclusief 8% vakantiegeld, 8,3% eindejaarsuitkering, reiskostenvergoeding, internet- en thuiswerkvergoeding en pensioenopbouw bij het ABP.

De KNAW biedt haar medewerkers een uitstekend pakket aan secundaire arbeidsvoorwaarden. Een pakket dat voorziet in de verschillende behoeften die medewerkers afhankelijk van hun levensfase, levenswijze of loopbaanambities hebben. Zo is het mogelijk om door wekelijks twee uur per week extra te werken het aantal vakantiedagen van 29 tot 41 dagen per jaar (bij fulltime dienstverband) uit te breiden.

Voor een volledig overzicht van de arbeidsvoorwaarden wordt verwezen naar de webpagina: werken bij de KNAW.

NIOO-KNAW

The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) is a top research institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). NIOO-KNAW focuses on fundamental and strategic research on individual organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems.