IWMI Job Vacancy For Research Officer - GIS Spatial Analyst

JOB PURPOSE 

To provide scientific and technical support on spatial analysis and data management to researchers, including hydrologists, irrigation engineers, modelers, agronomists and socio-economists, working on diverse projects related to water and food security issues in West Africa.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Assist in identifying, locating, negotiating and obtaining access/licenses required for datasets such as SPOT satellite imagery or land-use maps for projects in West African countries.
• Provide expertise in remote sensing data manipulation, such as developing land-use classifications/signatures from remotely sensed data (Landsat 5), merging images and cloud corrections, land-use classifications, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and actual evaporation calculations in Africa, especially for the ‘Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation’ (TAAT) project.
• Contribute to relevant research conducted by the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), which is led by IWMI, and other CRPs in which the Institute is participating.
• Incorporate and prepare research reports, and contribute to journal articles and other scientific manuscripts (policy guidelines, policy briefs) for dissemination and uptake of research results for stakeholder engagement.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Essential

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in remote sensing, spatial analysis or a similar discipline
  
  

Essential

Experience and knowledge

• At least 3 years of work experience with teams of researchers and professionals in the areas of agriculture, hydrology or natural resource management, with knowledge of spatial analysis procedures, requirements and presentation for socioeconomic studies.
• Knowledge of the application of agricultural production or natural resource process models (e.g., crop simulation, soil degradation, crop-livestock systems), preferably in a spatial and economic context.
• Fluent in English – both written and verbal.
• Experience and working knowledge of spatially explicit hydrologic modeling principles/models.
• Excellent working knowledge of network flow water allocation model.
• Admirable knowledge and abilities in estimating uncertainty or spatial statistics.
• Awareness of water management and food security issues in developing countries.
• Programming experience (ArcGIS, QGIS, SQL, Python, R, C, Fortran, PhP and others).

DESIRABLE

• Proven ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Ability to communicate clearly to a range of different audiences.

• Working knowledge of French (for collaboration with Francophone researchers) and other local African languages.
  
  

Benefits

This is a nationally recruited position with a competitive salary and benefits package. The duration of the contract will be for a three-year period with the possibility of extension based on performance and availability of funds.