Project Manager – Soil assessments Contract Agent

The candidate will:

- Lead on regular European-scale assessments of soil-related issues associated with natural and/or anthropogenic processes (e.g. climate change and adaptation, land take by urban development, agricultural intensification/extensification, ecosystems condition change) in cooperation with experts from other sectors (water, agriculture, forestry, land use, climate change, biodiversity etc.) and partner organisations;

- Coordinate the EEA thematic indicator set for soil and related land use issues and contribute to the development of the EEA spatial information system for integrated environmental and sustainability assessment; support the implementation of ecosystem accounting;

- Participate in the identification of the spatial data requirements to support European and global development initiatives aiming at protection of productive soils thru land resource efficiency, sustainable use and management of land resources and land degradation neutrality, with particular attention to impacts of land-use changes on soil quality in sensitive areas e.g. settlements, protected areas, floodplains or coastal zones;

- Support the further development, documentation, testing, and validation of soil function mapping and contribute with this information to integrated land assessments; assessment of the inter-linkages between sustainable land management, territorial planning policy and governance in general;

- Liaise with providers of soil information and facilitate access to relevant information for assessments and reporting; coordinate the Eionet expert network for soils and cooperate with the Land Resources Unit in EC Joint Research Centre;

- Develop projects relevant to soils in line with the priorities identified in the EEA work programme, design the tasks for the European Topic Centre on Urban, land and soil systems (ETC/ULS) and carry out quality assurance/quality control of the deliverables;

- Support EU policy implementation processes and targets relevant to soil, such as of the Thematic strategy for Soil protection, the 7th Environment Action Programme and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020; and interact with international organisations, such as UNCCD, FAO (Global Soil Partnership), etc.

More info: http://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/jobs/eeavacancy.2016-09-16.4726362079