NERC GW4+ DTP PhD Studentship: Role of Ecosystem Services in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus six Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Met Office, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science. For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/
At least 37 fully-funded studentships that encompass the breadth of earth and environmental sciences are being offered to start in September 2017 across the GW4+ DTP.

Main supervisor: Dr Elias Martinez Hernandez
Co-supervisor(s): Dr Xiaoyu Yan (University of Exeter), Prof Kevin J Gaston (University of Exeter), Dr Thomas Kjeldsen (University of Bath)

Providing essential food, energy and water needs for a growing population is becoming challenging, especially under resource availability constraints and climate change. This project will place the student at the forefront of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus and ecosystem services science and will contribute to advance the emerging field of techno-ecological systems. This is a very exciting project where you will be looking at the interlinkages of water, energy and food provisioning systems considering the role of ecosystem services[1]. Ecosystems provide multiple services upon which WEF provisioning ultimately depend; for example, nutrient cycling allows growing food, rainfall catchment allows aquifers recharge, and biomass generation allows energy provision. In this project you will be developing a systematic modelling framework that allows studying interactions between the WEF nexus and ecosystem services. For example, what are the implications of biomass harvest (e.g. to produce energy) for other ecosystem services and how will the impact affect water availability and food production?

This challenging project will allow you to develop skills in mathematical modelling, life cycle environmental impact assessment and spatial analysis using geographical information systems (GIS). You will be applying these skills for mapping, modelling and assessing ecosystem services and WEF infrastructures in a particular region (initially Cornwall, but can be adapted to a region of your interest). You will be one of the first researchers simultaneously studying technological and ecological components. This will allow devising opportunities to develop techno-ecological systems with symbiotic interactions that enhance the capacity to satisfy human needs while maintaining ecosystem services [2, 3]. This will provide a new perspective for creating solutions to manage the complex interactions and trade-offs between WEF systems and the fundamental ecosystem services that support them.

Models and tools will be nicely wrapped up into a WEF nexus-ecosystem service analysis tool, which will be made available as a web-based platform. The tool will be useful to understand how the WEF systems benefit from and impact on ecosystem services over their entire life cycles at multiple spatial scales. You will be engaging with relevant stakeholders such as engineers, planners for urban and/or rural development, policy and industry decision makers who could be using your tool. In doing so, you will contribute to create the next generation of practitioners with a holistic techno-ecological perspective. Furthermore, the tool will also stimulate the dialogue between natural environment and engineering research.