Postdoctoral Researcher on the Impact of Climate Adaptation on Poverty Traps (University of Amsterdam)

Working with Debraj Roy and the Netherlands eScience Center, this position focuses on modelling feedbacks between climate change adaptation and poverty traps dynamics using spatial agent-based models. The focus is on cities in the Global South; collaborations with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre are foreseen.

The project focuses on modelling the feedbacks between climate change adaptation and poverty traps. Specifically, we study the role of adaptation in shaping risk using spatially explicit modelling of the socio-economic dynamics related to climate change adaptation (CCA), and how dynamics in poverty levels impact adaptive capacity. Spatial agent-based modelling (SABM), enabled by growing computing power, has been successfully applied to analyse macro-outcomes in a virtual society, emerging out of the actions and interactions of individual heterogeneous agents in a city or region. Agent decision-making is flexible and incorporates behavioural factors, bounded rationality, interactions, and learning. Although SABM is actively used to study social, economic, and environmental problems, including CCA, they have not yet been used to explore the mutual dynamics of adverse climate impacts and poverty traps. You are expected to make methodological advancements in understanding the role of CCA in the emergence of poverty traps.

What are you going to do:

  • Develop and scale up a spatially explicit agent-based model to systematically explore the factors reinforcing poverty traps as climate change intensifies.
  • Perform sensitivity analysis of the model. Develop and implement strategies for model calibration and validation.
  • Collaborate with researchers at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre to explore a wide range of real-world scenarios using the agent-based model.
  • Publish in high level international journals, presenting at leading conferences and collaborate with PhD/Master/Bachelor students.
  • Assure research data management following the FAIR data principles.
  • You will have the opportunity to contribute to policy reports and translating scientific evidence to practical recommendations.

The deadline to apply is 1 April 2022. Apply here: https://www.academictransfer.com/nl/306813/postdoctoral-researcher-on-the-impact-of-climate-adaptation-on-poverty-traps/