The incumbent will lead a major modeling effort in support of a funded 4-year NSF Combined Human and Natural Systems project that is investigating linkages among climate change, ecology, and human behavior (e.g., farmers, decision-makers) in the largely agricultural Maumee River watershed, which is a primary source of sediments and nutrients to western Lake Erie. The Post-doc’s primary responsibilities will be two-fold: 1) predict how climate and watershed land use interact to affect downstream (Lake Erie) ecosystem attributes (e.g., water clarity, harmful algal blooms, fisheries production) by integrating an existing SWAT watershed model that is driven by climate and land use/management with established statistical models from western Lake Erie; and 2) to determine if changes in human behavior across the watershed can offset the expected impacts of climate change on Lake Erie ecosystem services.  This latter objective will be achieved by modeling ecosystem scenarios in which a regional climate model is used to drive linked, spatially-explicit models of public policy, farmer behavior, land management change, and the biophysical system. Because the SWAT model has been calibrated and validated, the successful candidate can immediately begin performing management and climate scenarios, as well as publishing results.

 

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