PhD opportunity: A fully funded PhD is available for UK students as part of the Ecowild Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT).
Going back to a peaty future: past peat losses, present restoration options and future peat gains – identifying and overcoming stressors to peat formation
Peatland ecosystems are among the most threatened globally, impacted by multiple environmental stressors. However, our understanding of these impacts is limited thereby hindering conservation and restoration efforts. Notably, many peatlands have been lost or altered due to humans using peat as a resource over millennia, especially due to peat cutting for fuel, drainage and fertilisation for agriculture and overgrazing. However, often only shallow peat (<40 cm) remains are left, which are periodically wet but have lost key functions for peat formation.
This will be the first project to assess such historic peat losses, to develop and trial restoration methods in areas of shallow peat, and to predict likely futures considering carbon, water and biodiversity gains. The project will be closely linked to ongoing peatland restoration work (including placements) by the North York Moors National Park Authority and policy development as part of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee. The student will be mainly based at the University of York at the Stockholm Environment Institute. But it will be fully integrated into the friendly research team at York (main supervisor: Dr Andreas Heinemeyer), and work on some of the ECT’s Peatland-ES-UK sites.
Timeline
Applications: 31st March - 29th April
Selection: May/June 2024
Start: October 2024
Links to the scheduled ‘meet the supervisor’ events, as well as the full list of projects advertised under this CDT, can be found here: https://ecowild.site.hw.ac.uk/phd-training/
For more information see the Find A PhD website.
You must apply via the ECOWILD website
Back to the Peatland-ES-UK webpage
