This is one of two interdisciplinary PhD positions within a project that aims at providing a long-term reconstruction of human-environment interactions in floodplains in Flanders. The Anthropocene is often considered to be a new geological period in which humans have altered the landscape significantly. Whilst global assessments on how important humans have been as geomorphic agents do exist, these are very crude and based on limited data. Furthermore, little is known about the beginnings and evolution of humans as landscape architects at regional and local scales, making it impossible to understand how anthropogenic current landscapes are. This research project aims to unravel, analyze and improve our understanding of the long-term landscape development of two contrasting regions and their floodplains in particular (Dijle and Grote Nete), representative for the European Loess and Coversand Belts. Both were shaped profoundly by human impact but at different times, at different rates and with different outcomes. This project combines geomorphological and landscape-historical analyses, quantifying soil mobilization over 10,000 years and examining human-environment relations since the eighteenth century. The project’s outcomes are expected to inform governmental and non-governmental organizations involved in rural and floodplain management, while also exploring the potential contribution of cultural heritage to sustainable landscape management.
This PhD position will focus on the early modern and modern period, with a special focus on the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The PhD-researcher will make use of a wide range of written sources, produced and formed by several actors, and includes among others census data, historical maps, images, official and private archival records, but also oral histories recorded through depth-interviews.
The interdisciplinary PhD in History & Geography will collaborate with an interdisciplinary PhD in Geography & History, under the supervision of both promoters of the project (Yves Segers, History and Gert Verstraeten, Geography).
Applicants are expected to have the following qualifications and attitudes:
We offer:
The successful candidate may be asked to provide (limited) assistance with teaching, student supervision and data management.
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Yves Segers, tel.: +32 16 32 35 43, mail: yves.segers@kuleuven.be or Prof. dr. Gert Verstraeten, tel.: +32 16 32 64 11, mail: gert.verstraeten@kuleuven.be.
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