PhD-course on soil- and landscape modelling

Dear colleagues,

We are happy to announce the international PhD-course on soil-landscape modelling from 3-7 October 2016 at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

More information and registration on  https://www.pe-rc.nl/soil-landscape-modelling .

Scope

As we are reaching the limits of human use of our lands, there is an increasing need to design climate-smart, sustainable land use and land management solutions. To provide this it is crucial to have a mechanistic understanding of processes and interactions between soils and landscapes. This is the topic of the very active research field of soil-landscape modelling. Following a recent review and the development of novel models, the community now organises a soil-landscape modelling course for all interested PhD candidates, postdocs and other academics. Learning objectives include gaining an understanding of concepts and modelling approaches, and working on the participant’s own case studies with some of the available models. The course will be held on the beautiful campus of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, in the fall of 2016.
Programme

The course will start on Monday morning, and will end on Friday afternoon. Before the start of the course, participants will be asked to submit a short summary of the soil-landscape aspect of their studies, and of the datasets they have available.
Mornings will be focussed on lectures, afternoons will be focussed on supervised work by the participants, applying what they learned in the morning on their own case studies. This is a time-tested set-up that ensures students come away from the course with hands-on experience and first results towards answering their research questions.

Monday: In the morning there will be introductory lectures. In the afternoon there will be participant's presentations of case studies and questions, and in the evening there will be a course dinner.

Tuesday: In the morning there will be presentations of various models of soil-landscape evolution. In the afternoon participants can select their model of choice and do trial runs. Example data are available.

Wednesday: In the morning there will be lectures on how to optimally leverage field data and model options to answer research questions. In the afternoon the participants can set up of runs with their model of choice on their case studies. Models can run overnight.

Thursday will be a field-day to explore soil-landscape interactions in the Meerdaal forest in Belgium. Transport will be arranged and we are considering to organise a dinner en-route.

Friday: In the morning the participants can collect their model outputs and do the first analysis. There will also be a guest lecture. Then in the afternoon, there will be presentations by the participants, followed by feedback. The course will be wrapped up with some closing remarks and then ended with farewell drinks.
Course coordinators

·         Arnaud Temme (Wageningen University, Netherlands)

·         Lennart Suselbeek (Graduate School PE&RC, Netherlands)
 
Speakers

Lecturers contributing to the course:

·         Peter Finke (Ghent University, Belgium; SoilGen-model)

·         Tom Vanwalleghem (University of Cordoba, Spain; MILESD-model)

·         Garry Willgoose (University of Newcastle, Australia; mARM*-models)

·         Michael Sommer (Zentrum für Agrar Landschaftsforschung, Germany)

·         Sagy Cohen (University of Alabama, USA, mARM*-models)

·         Arnaud Temme (Wageningen University, Netherlands, LORICA-model)

Prof. Dr. Peter A. Finke