Post-Doctorate in Water Sciences

New concepts for defining a comprehensive water footprint integrating quality, quantity, pressures and impacts

Duration: 30 months 

Context

The national program OneWater - Eau Bien Commun (Water as a Common Good) places water research at the heart of sustainable regional transition. Its aim is to produce the knowledge needed to understand complex socio-hydro-ecosystems, and to propose viable, equitable and sustainable solutions, and to test them in the field. OneWater will involve in particular the definition of a new concept of "exhaustive water footprint/fingerprint" applicable to a production, a use, a territory..., and designed to integrate pressures on the resource (e.g. withdrawals, chemical inputs, their transfer and transformation in the water cycle) and their impacts on water quality, ecosystem health through to impacts on society and health. 

The "Exhaustive Water Footprint" considers water as a sentinel of environmental and human health along the continental-aquatic and land-sea continuum. It is based on surface and groundwater volumes (available water, human withdrawals, ecosystem needs) and quality characterization via a targeted panel of contaminants representative of the impact of activities relating to a socio-ecosystemic context analyzed with innovative and complementary methods, complemented by toxicological and ecotoxicological tools relating the overall impact of aquatic contamination or specific typologies of contamination.

Missions

The activity will be built around three activities: 

1. Participate in the elaboration, construction and consolidation of a new concept on the exhaustive water footprint.
2. Formalize and write up the conclusions of the foresight study, with valorization through synthesis articles
3. Transcribe the exhaustive footprint concept in terms of an operational modeling approach in a changing context, particularly from a regulatory point of view. 

The postdoctoral researcher will participate in leading the foresight project, the aim of which is to consolidate and develop interactions between the fields involved in order to concretely define the new exhaustive footprint concept and practical implementation methods, particularly in terms of targeting test sites. The forward-looking approach will involve several workshops mobilizing the national community and the various disciplines concerned (hydro(geo)logical, chemical, biological, ecological, ecotoxicological). He/she will coordinate organizational and financial aspects under the direction of the project leaders. He/she will coordinate the drafting of reports and conclusions, as well as the dissemination of ideas to the scientific community through review articles. 

He/She will contribute to the transcription of the concept of exhaustive water footprint into an operationalizable model. He/She will translate the concept into a set of objectives, constraints and processes to be taken into account in a comprehensive approach to the pressures, transformations and impacts of water and contaminant flows. He/She will address questions concerning the relationship between quality and quantity, the variety of interactions, characterization issues, the opportunities presented by new measurement methods, deployment on a wide range of sites and expectations in terms of resource monitoring.

Conditions

The post-doc will be employed on a 30-month contract by the University of Rennes in the Geosciences Rennes unit, where he/she will be based. He/she will interact with the project leaders and the scientific community as a whole. Salary will be commensurate with previous experience and in line with University of Rennes salary scales. The post-doc will benefit from the flexible working conditions (telecommuting) offered by the University. 

Start date: at the earliest after April 29, 2024. 

How to apply

Applications should be sent to Jean-Raynald de Dreuzy (Jean-Raynald.de-Dreuzy@univ-rennes1.fr) and consist of a CV including a list of publications and a cover letter explaining scientific interests.