The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at Aarhus University will be giving a PhD course in September on the topic “Phosphorus in Wetlands – hydrology, biogeochemistry and management”.

The course will give students an introduction to hydrology and biogeochemistry in aquatic environments with a focus on the transformation and dynamics of phosphorus. The students will be given the opportunity to work intensively with data from Danish wetland restoration projects. The course will also work with re-establishment and management of wetlands as a strategic tool for limiting the impact of nutrients on the aquatic environment.

- Re-establishing wetlands at the border between agriculture and the aquatic environment is considered as the most cost-efficient mitigation measure for reducing the impacts of nutrients from agriculture. There is, however, limited knowledge on the efficiency of wetlands towards reducing agricultural phosphorus losses, says senior scientist Charlotte Kjærgaard from the Department of Agroecology and Environment at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, who is coordinating the course.

The faculty is actively involved in research regarding phosphorus in wetlands. Research within this area takes place in close collaboration with the National Environmental Research Institute, through the VMPIII (Aquatic Environment Strategy) project ”BUFFALO-P”, and a recently launched interdisciplinary research project called ”MONITECH” financed by the Danish Council for Strategic Research.

The PhD course is organised within the PhD programmes RECETO ( www.receto.dk ) and STAiR ( www.stair.agrproject.dk ). The course is coordinated by senior scientist Charlotte Kjærgaard in collaboration with professor Hans Christian Bruun Hansen from the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, research professor Brian Kronvang and senior scientist Carl Christian Hoffmann from the National Environmental Research Institute at Aarhus University, and associate professor Henning Jensen from the University of Southern Denmark.

The course is worth five ECTS credits. Deadline for registration is 15 August 2009. Students writing their Masters thesis and who are considering applying for a PhD project within this research area are also welcome to apply for the course.

More information about the course can be found on the website: www.wetlands.agrproject.dk

For more information please contact: Senior scientist Charlotte Kjærgaard, Department of Agroecology and Environment, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aarhus University, telephone: +45 89991864, e-mail: c.kjaergaard@agrsci.dk