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• Location

AGROPARISTECH de Nancy
UMR Silva

• Objectives

The objective of this internship will be to improve the estimation of the soil water holding capacity maps across the north-east of France. Currently, it is done using estimations on deep pits described for site types catalogs, which are applied uniformly on the maps for each site type units (a site type unit is supposed to represent an homogeneous ecological unit). This method is based on the hypothesis of homogeneity of soil properties for a given site type unit, which is not true in reality. On the other hand, the numerous forest inventory plots from IGN allow the mapping of the soil water holding capacity spatial variability, leading to a digital map produced by AgroParisTech over France, but the depth of prospection with an auger is often insufficient. The combination of these two approaches could make it possible to combine the advantages of these two methods while limiting their disadvantages.

The objective of this intership will be:

- To combine these two approaches using downscaling techniques to produce a new map with fine spatial resolution (50 m), combining the depth information provided by ONF, while taking into account the spatial variability of AgroParisTech maps;
- To compare these three maps (ONF, AgroParisTech, and the combination of the two) to other existing maps, such as those of Globalsoilmap or ESDB
- To evaluate these different maps using an independent dataset collected on more than 100 deep pits, available on the study site ;
- To compare the ability of all of these maps to predict the growth, distribution, or health of different species for which data sets exist (several thousand plots with site indices for different species, the characterization of their health status, or the inventory of species present)

• Skills

master 2 level, knowledge in pedology, modeling, data analysis, GIS, R software, writing skills

• Application

Send a CV and a cover letter by email to C. Piedallu mentioning the title of the offer, before the end of November 2023.

• Contact

Christian Piedallu, Tel 00.33.(0)3.83.39.68.77, fax 00.33(0)3.83.39.68.78, mail christian.piedallu@agroparistech.fr