We are seeking a PhD candidate, with stipend top-up funding available, to join a multi-disciplinary team working on an Australian Research Council Linkage project that seeks to improve our understanding of dynamics in the climate, water resource and environmental components of regulated rivers. Of particular interest is how these components interact during multi-year dry sequences to stress river ecosystems.

The candidate’s project will develop metrics of environmental system performance relevant to the delivery of environmental flows, accounting for temporal and spatial variability in behaviour. Particular areas of interest include:

• Improved consideration of non-flow stressors (e.g. temperature). These stressors have the potential to modify or even negate ecological responses to flow changes;
• Improving the modelling of long-term responses to flow regime changes, including ‘tipping points’ and thresholds. Current modelling approaches for environmental water management tend to assume that ecological responses never completely fail – i.e. that re-instatement of flows will lead to improvement of ecological endpoints from any condition. However, climate futures may lead to situations where some ecological assets are lost completely from systems if flows are not managed appropriately;
• Improved consideration of multi-year dynamics in ecological responses and the feedback systems that operate over time. Current modelling approaches tend to assume long-term stationarity of drivers and responses.
• Improving the rigour with which data and expert opinion are used to populate relationships

The candidate will be supervised by Dr Angus Webb, Prof LeRoy Poff (University of Canberra) and Dr Avril Horne. The Linkage project partners include the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), the Victorian Environmental Water Holder (VEWH) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Eligibility

Students entering the PhD program in the Melbourne School of Engineering in 2019 and enrolled on a full-time basis. Candidates must be eligible to apply for an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship, and be highly competitive for that award. Australian and international students are eligible to apply. Applicants will be assessed on their scholarship score and relevant previous experience. Candidates with ecology or environmental science backgrounds are preferred, and quantitative skills would be particularly useful. 

Value

 Top-up scholarship of $7,000 p.a. in addition to AGRTP scholarship of $27,082 p.a. DELWP will also provide considerable in-kind support in the form of staff time and data sets. The scholarship tenure is 3.5 years depending on progress and continuing eligibility.

For more information, or to apply, click 'View details' below.