The School of Ocean Sciences (SOS), Bangor University hosts the Cemlyn Jones Studentship funded by the Cemlyn Jones Trust. The Trust has a long-term interest in the history of the Welsh coast and shallow seas.
Stability and variability of coastal marine habitats on decadal time scales
My project is a particularly interesting one, read on below or see the PDF of the project description. One new announcement is that we are developing capacity to collect our own aerial imagery using radio-controlled aircraft. The student will be fully trained in it’s use and will be expected to conduct drone-based aerial photography for their project, as well as analyse hindcast data.
Long-term datasets that focus on marine communities are very rare. One particular, exploitable resource that harbours a wealth of past information is aerial photography. Usually obtained at great cost, these images capture detail that can be used to monitor physical change in coastlines and also changes in extent of biological communities (Davies et al. 2007). In this project, we will analyse images of the Irish Sea coastline, which extend back from the present day to the 1940s. These images are available from the CCW and WAG archives, the Marine Institute (Irish coast; data from 1998-99 acquired), NERC, Ordnance Survey (under the Public Service Mapping Agreement) and the Department of Environment Northern Ireland. We will also use our new acquisition, a drone based on Mikrokopter Hexa XL (currently under construction). This helicopter will be fitted with the latest GPS tracking and high-resolution camera equipment. This will allow us to travel throughout Wales and the Irish coastline collecting our own, highly targeted aerial imagery, whether I let the student fly it will be under discussion!
Applications are invited by the 22nd of December 2010 for a 3 year PhD position to start on February 1st at the internationally renowned School of Ocean Sciences in Menai Bridge. This is a competitive call, with four projects available including mine, only one student will get their chosen project. This means, you have to be a good student with at least a 2.1. honours degree or equivalent in an appropriate area of geological, biological or environmental science relevant to their particular choice of project.
Apply by following the instructions here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACA397/cemlyn-jones-studentship-in-marine/
Many many more details in the Project description PDF.
For further information, do not hesitate to contact me at andrew.j.davies (at) bangor.ac.uk. Replace (at) with @ symbol or use the contact form.