Assistant Professor Multi-scale hydrological assessment through modelling and data integration

Freshwater is crucial to sustain life, economic development and the environment, but it is also a vulnerable resource whose availability and quality varies enormously around the globe. We need to understand the natural and socio-economic processes that affect water resources and develop solutions for water scarcity, flooding and pollution.

The water cycle from local to continental scale undergoes rapid changes due to anthropogenic influences that affect land use and climate. Urbanization, land degradation, deforestation and land use interventions contribute to temporal and spatial changes in the water cycle and water balances, and often cause that water budgets are not, or will not be, sustainable to serve society. The effects of climate change may adversely accelerate water budget changes as already experienced in many countries. Simulation models for water resources and impact assessments often give unreliable answers due to a lack of adequate model input data. To improve multi-scale water resources assessment, we have excess to much more data than ever before: contemporary data including hydrometeorological high-resolution satellite data, satellite data on surface water and groundwater bodies and storage, climate circulation model data, but also data that indicate water stress in crops and natural vegetation, near-surface soil moisture and evaporation rates.

You will focus on developing artificial intelligence-based and numerical methods for the assimilation of multiple space-time resolved data (satellite, climate models, field data) in local to continental water resources modelling and assessment. Data assimilation techniques including probabilistic blending and fusion and multi-objective assessment approaches are possible ways to advance.

You will teach at bachelor and master levels in courses related to Earth and Environmental Science and Civil Engineering, guide bachelor and master students in their thesis writing, be daily co-supervisor of PhD students, engage in management tasks and acquire research funding. You will have a workplace in both Water Resources (WRS) of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) and Multidisciplinary Water Management(MWM) of the Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET). There will be strong collaboration within WRS and MWM, and other departments of the Faculties of ITC and ET. Collaboration with other Dutch and international universities is encouraged.

The Department of Water Resources (WRS) studies water systems and their relation with land use and climate through remote sensing, field instrumentation and modelling. We aim at capacity building of communities of water professionals, scientists and engineers that work toward a sustainable and resilient living environment.

The Chair group of Multidisciplinary Water Management (MWM) develops and applies holistic approaches which promote sustainable and resilient management of water systems. Particularly, we study the dynamics of supply and demand of water resources in interaction with climate, land use, energy transition and agricultural management as well as production, trade and consumption. The methods we use include hydrological modelling, water footprint and life cycle assessment, and integrated assessment.

Both departments understand water-related grand challenges as a shared responsibility, so we engage different partners and sectors to develop both science-based and useful solutions. To support decision-making, we provide data, models and tools and share our knowledge in academic teaching and science dissemination.

The departments work in a similar field of science, but have a different emphasis and complementary expertise. WRS focusses more on global capacity building and (remote) sensing, while MWM focusses more on engineering solutions, integral water management, and footprint assessment. This position will strengthen the collaboration between the two groups.