The Water Security Research Group (WAT) is dedicated to supporting and promoting students and postdoctoral scholars who have an interest in water-related research.  

If you are interested in applying for the Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) or for our various Postdoctoral Fellowships at WAT, we invite you to propose a research project of your interest that is aligned with the WAT research agenda.

An overview of our research agenda, research projects and recent publications can be found at the WAT home page. 

 

WAT Research Agenda

Building on the IIASA system analysis perspective, WAT is pioneering the application of new methodologies in the areas of sustainable water resources management and stakeholder-oriented solution pathways integrating hydrological and water resources modeling, hydro-economic systems analysis, agricultural assessments, water governance perspective, and climate change impact assessments across scales from local to regional and global. These methodologies are applied to the world’s water challenges, in order to provide robust scientific evidence to support the identification and assessment of strategies, technologies and governance options for countries with different water issues.

 

Areas of Research

WAT research activities combine solution-oriented and policy-relevant research with exploratory and empirical analysis. The main areas of research comprise:

  • Integrated assessment of global and regional water resources availability, quality and demand under future climatic and socio-economic change scenarios
  • Innovating solution pathways and relevant indicators towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 
  • Advancing stakeholder-oriented scenario development and regional water-food-energy-environmental nexus assessments
  • Global and regional hydro-economic and agricultural systems analysis for identifying sustainable transformation pathways and leveraging development opportunities to achieve a water-secure future.

Applications should be related to at least one of these fields. We are looking for YSSP and Postdoc applicants interested in working on:

  • Modeling large-scale hydrological processes and water resources including surface water, groundwater, wetlands, and lakes. A special emphasis is put on analyzing water supply and demand balance and integrating human impacts on water resources such as agriculture, water use, reservoir regulation, and inter-basin transfer. See Community Water Model (CWatM)
  • Modeling large-scale water quality processes under increasing pressure from human activities and climate change. Our focus on water quality includes but is not limited to nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen), salinity, sediment load and eutrophication at different spatial scales, but preferably at large scales such as large and transboundary river basins or at continental and global scale. See CWatM and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT+) 
  • Modeling and analyzing large-scale hydro-economic systems that represent spatially distributed water resource systems, infrastructure, management options and economic values in an integrated manner. Our focus includes balancing water supply and demand at different temporal and spatial scales using an economic optimization procedure that simulates a variety of basin management decisions including water allocation, irrigation management, inter-basin transfers, resource extraction, reservoir storage, and water infrastructure investments. See the Hydro-Economic optimization model (ECHO)
  • Modeling and analyzing agricultural systems at different spatial scales considering synergies and trade-offs of alternative uses of agro-resources (land, water, technology) for food and energy production, while preserving environmental quality. See Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ v4) 
  • Understanding policies, institutions, and other factors that contribute to the adaptation and sustainable use of water resources in developed and developing countries. Special focus is placed on the integration of modeling, stakeholders’ values and water governance through an innovative and inclusive stakeholders’ engagement and co-development process.  See the Scenario Planning Tool and the FairStream toolkit

This list is intended to be informative, not exhaustive. Potential applicants are welcome to suggest other research approaches and topics that fit into the WAT research agenda.

Contact

Applicants are encouraged to contact the coordinator of the YSSP and Postdoc applications at WAT, Sylvia Tramberend for any research related questions. Please include a brief abstract of your research idea and your current CV.