Thesis supervisor: András Kelemen
Location of studies (in Hungarian): University of Szeged Abbreviation of location of studies: SZTE
Description of the research topic:
The demand for sand as a building material is growing at both global and regional scales, leading to the establishment of new sand quarries. Therefore, it is essential to consider abandoned sand quarries in landscape-level conservation planning, as they can provide refugees for numerous endangered species of wetland habitats in the drying landscape.
Mining activities can be influenced in three main stages to create habitats of significant conservation value after abandonment: (i) construction, (ii) abandonment (reclamation), and (iii) post-treatment. Most international research has concentrated on the latter two phases, paying little attention to how the location and design parameters of sand quarries affect the communities that develop after abandonment. Our goal is to answer the most pressing questions in this understudied area. Thus, the main tasks of the PhD student will be: (i) Explore the impact of the landscape characteristics and abiotic parameters (size, depth, shape, slope) of abandoned sand quarries on their biodiversity using GIS tools. (ii) Quantify the impact of abandoned sand quarries on local groundwater levels using field measurements and GIS models. Completing these tasks requires deep geological knowledge in addition to ecological knowledge.
Required language skills: English Number of students who can be accepted: 1
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