Advert PhD Carbon in agricultural lands of South Africa and Kenya
PhD position: quantifying carbon dynamics in agricultural lands of South Africa and Kenya
Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences University of the Free State
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Soil organic carbon sequestration on agricultural lands appears an e3ective approach to mitigate climate change, given the enormous capacity of land masses to store carbon. However, soils are limited in their ability to sequester atmospheric carbon by inherent carbon saturation, which reflects the maximum ability of soils to protect carbon and depends on physico-chemical properties of the soil. Omitting C saturation from assessments of C sequestration potentials of soils can easily lead to severe overestimations of the ability of soils to sequester C. It is therefore important to obtain better understanding of C saturation values of di3erent soils and include these into models estimating the contribution of land use changes to C sequestration and climate change mitigation. We are looking for a PhD candidate who wishes to study this field.
More specifically, the PhD research will focus on:
1. QuantifyingandmodellingthemaximumcarbonsaturationpotentialofSouth
African and Kenyan soils
IntegratingmaximumcarbonsaturationpotentialinsoilCmodelsforrangelands
and arable lands in the focus regions
Criticalexaminationofassumptionsunderlyingland-basedcarboncreditschemes
in the focus regions
The PhD candidate will be registered with the Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences at the University of the Free State in South Africa and will become part of the newly established Research Chair in Climate Change and Agriculture. It is expected the PhD research will also involve field research in the North Rift and in Western Kenya together with the University of Eldoret.
We are looking for a candidate with an M.Sc. degree in Soil Science, Agronomy, or a closely related field. The candidate should be prepared to carry out field work in remote rural areas in South Africa and Kenya. Moreover, an a3inity with modelling and other quantitative methods is an advantage.
Interested candidates are invited to send a copy of their CV, a motivation letter, and a copy of their academic record to prof. Linus Franke (FrankeAC@ufs.ac.za) before October 31 2024. Non-SA citizens are also welcome to apply.