IWRI - Postdoctoral fellowship in Investigating the Drivers of Floods and Enhancing Resilience in the Maghreb

Expected starting date: March 2025

Internship length: 1 year renewable

Internship description: 

The Maghreb region faces a growing challenge in managing the devastating impacts of floods, as these events have become more frequent and severe in recent decades. The region's increasing vulnerability to floods stems from a combination of rapid urbanization, population growth, land-use changes, and climate variability. To address this pressing issue, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of the underlying physical processes that drive flood events. Advancing this knowledge will enable the development of more effective preparation, mitigation, and response strategies, ultimately enhancing resilience to floods and safeguarding lives, infrastructure, and ecosystems across the Maghreb. This Postdoc position aims to contribute to this critical effort by focusing on cutting-edge research in flood dynamics, hydrological modelling, and risk management.

Key duties:

The work to be performed will include:

• Processing and organization large dataset
• Evaluation of different remote sensing data on the flood modelling applications
• Use of different hydrological models coded in MATLAB or Python (a MATLAB-based preliminary models are available)
• Use of different event-based flood models
• Use of computer tools (Python or MATLAB) for the extraction and organization of hydro-climatological data and for running different hydrological models
• Study processes and genesis of extreme flood events.
• Play an active role in supervising and providing guidance to IWRI's PhD students and interns who are actively involved in hydrological modelling research.

Criteria of the candidate:   

PhD in hydrology, hydro-informatics, hydrometeorology, climatology, applied remote sensing on hydrology or related disciplines.

Skills:   

We are searching for a highly motivated and enthusiastic candidate, who should have:

• A good knowledge of hydrology
• A good understanding of flood genesis over semi-arid regions 
• Experience with hydrological modelling
• Experience with evaluation of remote sensing data
• Experience in data handling and processing
• Experience with MATLAB and Python is highly appreciated
• Fluency in written and spoken English and French.
• Ability in oral and written communication
• Demonstrated track record of high-quality scientific publications
• International experience and a demonstrated ability to collaborate with researchers at both national and international levels are highly regarded.
• Experience in co-supervising students is important

About UM6P:

Located at the heart of the future Green City of Benguerir, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), a higher education institution with an international standard, is established to serve Morocco and the African continent. Its vision is honed around research and innovation at the service of education and development. This unique nascent university, with its state-of-the-art campus and infrastructure, has woven a sound academic and research network, and its recruitment process is seeking high-quality academics and professionals to boost its quality-oriented research environment in the metropolitan area of Marrakech.  

About IWRI:

IWRI is a transversal structure across several UM6P Programs. Research within the center is organized around several major areas that aim to ensure the challenging Food and Water security goal in Africa, with a special focus on developing methods/tools that use multi-source remotely, sensed data. The research aims to improve our understanding of the integrated functioning of continental surfaces and their interaction with climate and humans, with emphasis on sustainable management of natural resources (soil, land, water, agriculture) in the context of Climate Change. One of the center’s goals is to provide a set of services and operational products to users (local, national, and international) that aid in the decision support of water and food systems.