Professor/University

Wetsus - European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology Research Field
Geosciences » Geology
Geosciences » Other Researcher Profile
First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions
PhD Positions Application Deadline
16 Oct 2026 - 15:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) Country
Netherlands Type of Contract
Temporary Job Status
Full-time Hours Per Week
40 Offer Starting Date
1 Mar 2027 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?
Not funded by a EU programme Reference Number
2026.12 Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?
No
Offer Description
Research challenges
Although ecological evidence links weed communities to soil conditions, predictive plant-soil inference in agricultural fields remains limited. Weed distributions are highly dynamic, influenced by crop rotation, management history, disturbance, and plant-soil feedbacks, creating complex nonlinear patterns where species presence alone cannot explain soil variability. Key challenges include reliable weed detection in mixed canopies, separating soil signals from management effects, integrating multi-scale datasets, and accounting for microbiome interactions affecting weed and crop performance. In addition, optical plant traits must be translated into biologically meaningful indicators for robust modelling. Many existing AI approaches function as black boxes, limiting practical adoption. This project addresses these gaps by developing transparent AI frameworks that integrate species recognition, trait extraction, and soil sensing to predict soil properties while ecologically explaining disease risks and abiotic or biotic stress patterns.
Your assignment
You will develop an AI-enabled framework linking weed species composition and functional traits to soil properties and agroecosystem outcomes. The work includes extracting quantitative plant traits from spectral and imaging data, analysing soil physicochemical an...