Associate Scientist

ICRISAT seeks applications for a national position of Associate Scientist – Land Resource Inventory and Hydrology to support the ICRISAT Development Center under Global Research Program Resilient Farm and Food Systems This position will be based at   ICRISAT headquarters, Patancheru, Telangana, Hyderabad.  ICRISAT is involved in a number of research and development projects towards Natural Resource Management and developing regenerative landscapes for sustainable crop intensification. There are 3 vacant positions. The incumbents are intended to undertake cutting-edge research in areas of integrating land resource inventory and hydrology, water balance studies including soil moisture dynamics, rapid soil testing and health assessment using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, digital soil mapping, instrumentation and soil moisture-based irrigation scheduling and instrumentation.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandate crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on the drylands and in protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit ? www.icrisat.org

Key Responsibilities

� Undertake research on vadose zone soil moisture dynamics and evaluate the impact of various in-situ interventions (such as field bunding, agro-forestry, mulching, trenches, etc.) on vadose zone soil moisture availability and its trade-offs in different soils and agro-ecologies;

� Characterization of soil physical parameters (hydraulic and retention parameters) using field and lab-based measurement techniques including inverse modelling;

� Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) techniques for rapid soil testing and soil health assessment

� Developing weather-based agro-advisories and its dissemination

� State-of-the-art instrumentation to monitor weather parameters and soil moisture dynamics;

� Hydrological modelling for resource quantification and identifying niche areas for sustainable crop intensification including fallow management

� Guide and supervise field staff on instrumentation, data compilation and analysis in respective project locations;

� Implement a range of resource conservation, agroforestry and productivity enhancement interventions in targeted agro-ecologies

� Organizing capacity building on water balance/ water management to various stakeholders and field functionaries including line department officials;

� Writing and communicating research and development findings to various stakeholders for scaling up; documentation and peer review journal publications

Skills and Qualifications:

 PhD in Natural Resources Management/environmental Engineering/Agricultural Engineering and related NRM disciplines with minimum of 6 months to 2 years? experience

Demonstrated skills on Vadose Zone soil moisture data collection, estimation of actual evapotranspiration at temporal and spatial scale; estimating crop water requirements;

Adapt and or develop experimental methods/concepts to support research in Vadoze Zone Hydrology

Independently plan and carry out research on the nominated research project and work towards fulfilling the aims of the project;

Candidate having good understanding of R programming, GIS, Remote sensing and Matlab will be preferred;

Perform data analysis, preparation of reports and communicate this information to different stakeholders;

Demonstrate capacity to work collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

Ability to develop effective relationships and work harmoniously in an outcome-focused and multi-disciplinary team environment.

Willingness to travel to outstation locations for instrumentation and data collection.

High level written, oral and interpersonal communication skills, including demonstrated experience in preparing reports and research papers within the required timeframe for a range of audience.

General:

This is a contractual position for a period of 24 months.

 How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 01 May 2024, with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references who are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer