Modelling Intern taking place in France in Berlin
ACTeon is a French-based human size (20 staff) research and consultancy company, active in the field of EU environmental policy. It is specialised in the “soft” components of environmental management and policy, i.e. social values & perceptions, economic values - including values of ecosystem’s services, the search for adequate incentives (knowledge, processes, economic instruments) to steer change in behaviour, perspective and policy (ex-ante and ex-post) evaluation, governance & institutions, and mediation & communication. ACTeon is providing support to policy development and implementation in the field of water, marine resources, biodiversity, climate change, and adaptation, agriculture and the environment, renewable energy, etc.
What are you going to do:
ACTeon is looking for an Intern to support its team with the design, implementation, and programming of a socio-economic model that quantifies and monetizes the impact of land-use change on ecosystem services.
The internship is part of the EU-funded research project LANDSUPPORT. The objective of LANDSUPPORT is to build a web-based geoSpatial Decision Support System (S-DSS). The S-DSS aims to support decisions concerning: 1. sustainable agriculture and forestry, 2. trade-offs between land uses, and 3. the implementation of European land-use policies and UN SDG's. The objective will be achieved by integrating databases and models that simulate agriculture, forestry, land degradation, and other environmental issues.
A socioeconomic module, capable to simulate changes in ecosystem services and their values, is one of the modeling engines constituting the S-DSS. Economic quantification of ESs attempts to measure human welfare derived from ESs and is one way to communicate the importance of ESs. The strength of economic quantification is that it conveys the importance of ESs directly in terms of human welfare and uses a common unit of account, allowing the analysis of trade-offs of multi-dimensional costs and benefits. The design, implementation, and programming of the socio-economic model are the subject of the internship.
So, the objective is to develop a socio-economic module that allows the spatial economic valuation of changes in ecosystem services due to land-use change that is driven by future developments (climate change, socio-economic change) and agro-environmental policies. The socio-economic model will be a connection between scenarios and management decisions that: 1. affect the biophysical environment, 2. change the supply of ESs and, 3. impact economic values of ESs. For this purpose, different types of models that are currently being developed in LANDSUPPORT should be connected or integrated. These connections should be considered in the development of the socio-economic module.
Given the dependence on biophysical models, the evaluation of changes in the provision of ESs and their values is strongly related to other tasks and work packages in LANDSUPPORT. For this purpose, the intern will work in close collaboration with Acteon's staff and external project partners.
The main tasks that are relevant to the position include: Contributing to the design of a socio-economic model including the development of a conceptual model, the design of model details, and the formulation of data requirements;
- Implementing (programming) the model in an appropriate modeling language (Python, Java, C++);
- Organizing data flows between the output of biophysical models, the quantification of ESs and the socio-economic module;
- Contributing to the model integration to the web-based platform;
- Visualizing results. The model will translate maps of changes in the supply of ESs to changes in values, using marginal values per unit of ecosystem service provided. The output of the socioeconomic model will be maps of potential economic values.
- Reporting on model design
What we offer:
- The intern will receive the regular internship allowance of as defined by French law.
- The internship is of 6 month duration, with an expected starting date in February/March 2019.
- The internship will take place at ACTeon’s Colmar office (France – 30 minutes by public transport from Strasbourg or Basel).
What we ask:
- Enrolled in a state-recognized university in master
- Master student in o Computer engineering/computational analysis with a demonstrated interest in economics and ecology; o Ecological economics with strong modeling and programming skills;
- Strong modeling skills, and experience with at least one of the programming languages Python, Java, C++;
- Excellent knowledge of GIS;
- Proactive and independent, with ability to work autonomously;
- Excellent English (written and oral) communication skills (A second language, is seen as an advantage);
- Applicants must be currently enrolled in a University.
Apply
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Extra information
- Status
- Inaktiv
- Education Level
- Abitur, Hochschule/Universität
- Location
- Berlin
- Working hours per week
- 35
- Type of Contract
- Praktikum
- Salary indication
- 3.75€ pro Stunde
- Responsible for
- Design, implementation and programming of a socio-economic model to evaluate ecosystem services
- Profession type
- IT / Software-Entwicklung / Programmierung
- Full UK/EU driving license preferred
- No
- Car Preferred
- No
- Cover Letter Required
- Yes
- Languages
- Englisch, Deutsch
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