PhD: Reconstructing Zeeland’s historic landscape developments
Utrecht University, Netherlands
- Institution
- Utrecht University
- Country
- Netherlands
- Position type
- PhD
- Subject area
- Humanities & Arts
- Application deadline
- 1 November 2026
- Funding
- Fully funded position
This position is outside the fields we mentor
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The full advert is above and the university's own application link is below — both free to use, with or without us.
About this position
Job description
The PhD position is part of the larger research project Re-Flex Zeeland that aims to reconstruct and visualize Zeeland's natural landscape formation processes during historical periods of rapid sea-level rise, with a focus on the last 12,000 years. The project is funded by the Delta Climate Centre (DCC) in Vlissingen and consists of two PhDs and one postdoc position in a collaboration between Utrecht University, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), NIOZ, Scalda and UNESCO GeoPark Schelde Delta.
Your job
The present-day landscape of Zeeland is highly regulated to support key societal, economic, and flood-safety functions. Allowing more space for natural processes to shape the landscape can contribute to flood protection and restoration of biodiversity, however, knowledge of how natural landscapes have evolved in the past and of the ecosystem services they once provided remains limited. This phenomenon is often described as shifting baselines, whereby each generation perceives the contemporary environment as the long-term norm. In reality, the Dutch landscape—and that of Zeeland in particular—has been extraordinarily dynamic and adjusting flexibly to changes in sea level. Over the Holocene, Zeeland has transitioned from an subarctic environment with boreal forest to alternating phases of peatland and intertidal environments, before becoming largely regulated through human embankment only in the past few centuries.
For the work package “Holocene peat deposits as natural archives of landscape developments” we look for a motivated PhD student who investigates these landscape and ecosystem dynamics in Zeeland based on fossil plant remains preserved in peat and lake sediment records.
What will you be doing?
You will design and carry out field work to map the locations and ages of peat deposits along an east-west transect around the major marine estuaries of Zeeland. You will integrate existing and new field data and investigate the botanical composition of the peat and, using pollen analysis, improve the current knowledge on past landscape reconstructions with a focus on peat to intertidal transitions. You will also co-supervise BSc and MSc courses and thesis projects that contribute to this.
The gathered data will provide new insight in the exact timing and variability in past landscape changes. Your results will furthermore contribute to computer simulations of coastal dynamics in a parallel PhD project conducted at WUR and provide context for visualisations of historic landscapes developed by a postdoc at NIOZ in a collaboration with Scalda and UNESCO GeoPark Schelde Delta.
Your job
The present-day landscape of Zeeland is highly regulated to support key societal, economic, and flood-safety functions. Allowing more space for natural processes to shape the landscape can contribute to flood protection and restoration of biodiversity, however, knowledge of how natural landscapes have evolved in the past and of the ecosystem services they once provided remains limited. This phenomenon is often described as shifting baselines, whereby each generation perceives the contemporary environment as the long-term norm. In reality, the Dutch landscape—and that of Zeeland in particular—has been extraordinarily dynamic and adjusting flexibly to changes in sea level. Over the Holocene, Zeeland has transitioned from an subarctic environment with boreal forest to alternating phases of peatland and intertidal environments, before becoming largely regulated through human embankment only in the past few centuries.
For the work package “Holocene peat deposits as natural archives of landscape developments” we look for a motivated PhD student who investigates these landscape and ecosystem dynamics in Zeeland based on fossil plant remains preserved in peat and lake sediment records.
What will you be doing?
You will design and carry out field work to map the locations and ages of peat deposits along an east-west transect around the major marine estuaries of Zeeland. You will integrate existing and new field data and investigate the botanical composition of the peat and, using pollen analysis, improve the current knowledge on past landscape reconstructions with a focus on peat to intertidal transitions. You will also co-supervise BSc and MSc courses and thesis projects that contribute to this.
The gathered data will provide new insight in the exact timing and variability in past landscape changes. Your results will furthermore contribute to computer simulations of coastal dynamics in a parallel PhD project conducted at WUR and provide context for visualisations of historic landscapes developed by a postdoc at NIOZ in a collaboration with Scalda and UNESCO GeoPark Schelde Delta.
Apply directly to Utrecht University
Emerging Scholars Council is not the employer and does not recruit for this position. It is advertised by Utrecht University, and your application goes to them. We help students prepare and strengthen their applications.
Go to the official application page →Applications close 1 November 2026.
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