ILRI works to improve food and nutritional security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join the environmental research team in the Sustainable Livestock Program. This is in light of increasing demands from CGIAR Initiatives LCSR and MITIGATE+ to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, predominantly but not exclusively smallholder and pastoral livestock systems.
BACKGROUND
To achieve sustainable livestock development, we have to understand the impact of livestock on the environment (GHG emissions, soil health, water) at various scales. At the same time, livelihoods of millions of people in Africa depend on livestock production and are at risk due to climate change. The position will contribute to the OneCG initiatives LCSR (Livestock, Climate and System Resilience) and MITIGATE+. The focus will be on direct measurements and indirect estimations of GHG emissions from livestock manure and soils of different land-use types (for example, grassland, cropland, wetland, forest, etc) to better understand the magnitude of emission sources and how they contribute to the full balance of GHG emissions from livestock-agroecosystems.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
The key responsibilities for this position includes the following:
- Conducting agronomic, livestock productivity and greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements for different land use systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to allow the quantification of system-specific GHG fluxes, detect emission hotspots, and also to subsequently develop reliable mitigation options.
- Develop innovative concepts and ideas for further research (including proposal writing) to address environmental aspects of agricultural productions systems that do not compromise food security.
- Conduct laboratory-scale mesocosm parameterisation experiments to allow direct comparison of GHG emission potentials from manures and soils for different environmental conditions and management and intervention testing.
- Conduct quality control and quality assurance of the collected data.
- Manage and maintain laboratory and field facilities, specifically automatic soil GHG flux chambers, included in various setups, to quantify GHG emissions from soil, vegetation, and manure.
REQUIREMENTS
- PhD in nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, agronomy, geo-ecology, environmental sciences, soil science, or related fields.
- Knowledge of chemical analysis of environmental samples (soil and plant analysis) is an asset.
- Considerable practical knowledge of techniques and experience with equipment used in the measurement of GHG emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.
- Excellent spoken and written English.
- Knowledge on agricultural production systems in developing and/or developed countries is also an asset.
- Ability to effectively manage, visualize and analyze (statistics) large datasets.
APPLICATION DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 13, 2022
