In collaboration with DHI Water o Environment o Health the Department of Geography and Geology wishes to appoint a PhD-fellow for 3 years, from September 1, 2008 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The successful applicant will enroll at the PhD school at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Science. The candidate will be affiliated to the research platform in Water Resources and Earth Observation (WREO) at the Department of Geography and Geology (DGG). The fellowship fits into a dynamic and expanding group working on related subjects at DGG enabling the candidate to draw upon experiences from related research areas in a fruitful and inspiring working environment. The candidate will also be associated with the current research activities at DHI on operational modeling and data assimilation. The candidate is expected to collaborate with international partners in Europe, US and Africa through a number of ongoing research projects at DGG and DHI.

The goal of the project is to build a general land-surface data assimilation framework for assimilation of remote sensing data and derived products in hydrological modelling. The data assimilation system will be implemented in the distributed, integrated hydrological modelling system MIKE SHE fully coupled with an advanced soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer model, which allows a more direct utilisation of remote sensing data. Different strategies for assimilation of remote sensing data will be investigated. The principal remote sensing data to be used for data assimilation will be land surface temperature (LST) and leaf area index (LAI). Of particular interest is the LST data from the Meteosat Second Generation SEVIRI sensor, which provides data with a high temporal frequency that allows the diurnal variation to be mapped. For LAI the product developed using MODIS or MERIS data will be applied. The use of other RS products such as soil moisture will be explored. The developed data assimilation framework will be tested on a case study in West Africa as part of the AMMA project to evaluate the benefits and impacts of using remote sensing data on the predictions of vegetation dynamics, evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge, wetland dynamics and river flows at the catchment scale. The project will draw upon the expertise of DHI in hydrological modelling and the expertise in remote sensing at DGG.

It is a prerequisite for the appointment as a PhD-fellow, that the person concerned can be registered as a PhD-fellow according to the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation Executive Order no 18 of 14. January 2008. The applicant should have a Master's degree or a corresponding degree in mathematics, statistics, geography, geophysics, engineering or a similar subject. Strong programming and modeling skills necessary.

The salary depends on seniority, as agreed between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations within the range of 23,000-30,000 DKK/month (approximately 3,100-4,000 Euro/month).

Applicants must submit (in 3 copies) a short description of qualifications, CV, diplomas and transcripts, list of publications and a one page project proposal by June 3^rd 2008 at noon, to: Department of Geography and Geology, ุster Voldgade 10, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark, marked "Assimilation-PhD", or by e-mail to job@geo.ku.dk subject "Assimilation PhD"

Any potential applicant is invited to apply irrespective of gender, race, religion or ethnic background. Further information about the position can be obtained from Associate Professor Inge Sandholt, is@geogr.ku.dk