Funding is available for a PhD student to study alluvial sandbar dynamics
on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. The research objective is to better
understand the highly localized nature of eddy sandbar responses to
hydrologic regime, at the event scale (such as during floods) as well as
longer-term morphodynamics. The project will make use of an extensive data
set from 40 autonomously operating digital camera systems ('remote
cameras') which have been providing oblique high-resolution color imagery
(http://grandcanyon.usgs.gov/giswebdev/sandbarphotoviewer2/RemoteCameraTimeS
eries.html), up to 12 times per day, for several years (at some sites,
going back to 2008). This wealth of data can be used to explore sandbar
responses to flows at a range of timescales (from hours to years) as well
as other important aspects of the river corridor such as vegetation
encroachment and erosional processes. Additional data sets include (annual
or sub-annual) ground-based topographic surveys, and other remote sensing
data sets derived from aerial imagery (collected in 2005, 2009, and 2013).
The PhD funding will include full tuition, stipend, and health insurance.
The student will be based at the Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics Lab
(https://sites.google.com/a/nau.edu/remote-sensing-lab/), advised by Dr.
Sankey, School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, and
Informatics and Computing Program, Northern Arizona University. The student
will also work closely with USGS GCMRC (Grand Canyon Monitoring Research
Center; www.gcmrc.gov) research scientists – specifically Dr Daniel
Buscombe, Dr Paul Grams and Dr Erich Mueller - and a large group of
academic and government researchers working in Grand Canyon and throughout
the Colorado River Basin. The project will involve georectification of
oblique imagery into planform imagery using a network of surveyed ground
control points at each site. The student will contribute to the development
of automated or semi-automated algorithms for the segmentation of sandbars
from georectified images, and the continuing development of a novel
approach developed at GCMRC to extract 3D topographic data from imagery,
thus potentially providing a means to estimate sandbar volumes. The ideal
candidate should have, or is keen to develop, skills in a high-level
programming language such as Matlab/Python/R/IDL; an interest in image
processing/photogrammetry and/or remote sensing; a background in
geomorphology, geology,hydrology, engineering, computer science or related
discipline. Although this is designed as a PhD position, qualified
applicants seeking a M.S degree may be considered. Candidates interested in
the position should contact Dr. Sankey at [email protected].
