We would like to announce the opportunity for the following PhD topic funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) of the UK:

Title: Searching for sustainable land management strategies aimed at decoupling greenhouse gas emissions from economic performance

Outline: One of the aims of the Scottish Executive’s Climate Change Strategy is to decouple the link between carbon emissions and economic activity. The agriculture, forestry and the land use sector is important in that not only is it a contributor to the national economy, but it can
act as a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as a carbon store.

Various options for reducing the net emissions of GHGs from this sector have been proposed, including alternative ‘carbon-neutral’ energy crops, increased carbon sequestration through different ground covers and land management, reducing CH4 emissions from livestock, more efficient use of organic and inorganic fertilisers, and increased afforestation. Several of these options, however, involve a cost to the land manager, so that individual interests of making a livelihood conflict with societal goals of reducing GHG emissions. The proposed work will build on research currently funded by the Scottish Executive to model the emissions of CO2, CH4 and N2O from mineral soils as well as soils with high soil organic matter content common in Scotland. The innovative component of the proposed studentship will be the integration of this modelling activity with an agent-based modelling approach that attempts to simulate the factors influencing the decisions made by individual land managers. The work will contribute to a greater
understanding of the land use strategies that may contribute to a decoupling of GHG emissions from economic performance. Although we will use Scotland as our case study, the findings will enhance our understanding of the link between economic activity and GHG emissions more broadly.

Supervisors:
Dr Robin Matthews, Macaulay Institute (r.matthews@macaulay.ac.uk)
Professor Pete Smith, University of Aberdeen (pete.smith@abdn.ac.uk)

Please contact Dr Robin Matthews or Professor Pete Smith for further details and for an application form.