Postdoctoral Associate - Climate Data, Drought, and Hydrologic Modeling of the Everglades

Florida International University (FIU) seeks a highly motivated Postdoctoral Associate to conduct research on future drought risk and hydrologic response to changing hydro-meteorological conditions in the Greater Everglades and Everglades National Park (ENP). The associate will work on two closely integrated projects conducted collaboratively by FIU and Everglades National Park and will contribute to research supporting the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The research will combine historical and future climate datasets, physically based water-balance analysis, climate-model evaluation and selection, future scenario development, and process-based regional hydrologic modeling. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding the effects of changes in precipitation, evapotranspiration, temperature, and sea-level rise on drought, freshwater availability, hydroperiods, coastal gradients, and ecosystem-supporting flows.

Primary Responsibilities The Postdoctoral Associate will: ‘ Acquire, process, and analyze observational, reanalysis, and statistically downscaled CMIP5 and CMIP6 climate-projection datasets for South Florida and the Greater Everglades. ‘ Evaluate GCM performance during the historical baseline period and develop a defensible subset of climate models that represent the plausible range of future hydro-meteorological and drought conditions. ‘ Calculate reference evapotranspiration using the ASCE standardized Penman’Monteith method and evaluate/bias-correct precipitation and evapotranspiration datasets using appropriate observational and high-resolution reference products. ‘ Develop physically based precipitation-minus-evapotranspiration (P’ETo) water-balance metrics and characterize drought events using duration, intensity, and severity. ‘ Apply statistical methods, including run theory, distributional analysis, and clustering/model-selection techniques, to characterize historical and future drought behavior. ‘ Develop future scenarios incorporating Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), hydro-meteorological uncertainty, and sea-level rise, including bounding scenarios such as warm-wet and hot-dry conditions. ‘ Prepare spatially distributed precipitation and evapotranspiration inputs and conduct simulations using the Regional Simulation Model’Glades LECSA (RSMGL) under existing and CERP restoration conditions. ‘ Analyze changes in water levels, flows, hydroperiods, freshwater availability, wet/dry extremes, coastal gradients, and other hydrologic indicators relevant to Everglades ecosystems. ‘ Prepare technical reports, peer-reviewed publications, presentations, data products, and reproducible computational workflows, and communicate results to FIU and ENP collaborators., The successful candidate will work closely with Dr. Jayantha Obeysekera at FIU and Dr. Rajendra Paudel of the South Florida Natural Resources Center, Everglades National Park, and will have opportunities to contribute directly to science supporting long-term Everglades restoration, resilience, and adaptive management.

’ Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resources Engineering, Climate Science, Environmental Science, Earth System Science, or a closely related field. ‘ Strong background in hydrology, hydroclimatology, climate-change analysis, or water-resources modeling. ‘ Demonstrated experience processing and statistically analyzing large hydro-meteorological or climate datasets. ‘ Proficiency in scientific programming and data analysis, preferably using Python and/or R. ‘ Experience with climate projections, bias correction, statistical modeling, spatial analysis, and time-series analysis. ‘ Strong written and oral communication skills and demonstrated ability to conduct independent, reproducible research., Experience with one or more of the following is highly desirable: CMIP5/CMIP6 datasets; GCM downscaling and evaluation; evapotranspiration modeling; drought analysis; nonstationary hydroclimatic analysis; GIS and gridded spatial datasets; high-performance computing; regional hydrologic modeling; RSM/RSMGL; Everglades hydrology; sea-level-rise analysis; and CERP-related research or planning.