Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, is an internationally networked aquatic research institute within the ETH Domain. Eawag conducts research, education, and expert consulting to meet human needs for water while maintaining the function and integrity of aquatic ecosystems. The Food Web Ecophysiology group investigates how nutrients and contaminants move through animals, within food webs, and across ecosystem boundaries, and how global changes such as land use and climate change affect these processes.
The current project aims to understand how artificial flooding as a tool for river restoration reshapes stream and riparian food webs, aquatic–terrestrial connectivity, and resource pathways in hydropower-regulated alpine rivers.
Tasks
- Investigate how artificial floods alter the availability and use of aquatic and terrestrial resources within stream and riparian food webs.
- Assess whether stream food webs follow consistent recovery trajectories when floods are restored after a prolonged interruption.
- Utilise long-term data on flood restoration collected in the River Spöl at the Swiss National Park from 1999 to present.
- Conduct field sampling before and after the restart of artificial flooding in the River Spöl.
- Perform bulk stable isotope analyses of new and already-collected samples.
- Link data to flood-induced changes in habitat structure and hydromorphology.
- Develop and pursue creative research questions related to the project themes, using additional analytical skillsets where feasible within the project timeframe and budget.
- Contribute to the science-practice interface of artificial flood management in Switzerland.
- Interpret results in the broader context of environmental flows and adaptive restoration in hydropower-regulated rivers.
- Engage with Swiss practitioners involved with hydropower and aquatic resource management through meetings, presentations, and outreach publications.
Requirements
- Ability to work independently as well as part of a small team.
- Self-motivation for developing new skills or exploring new topics.
- Resilient, growth-based mindset.
- Prior wet lab experience, including stable isotope and other biogeochemical analyses.
- Comfort with performing lab work independently.
- Interest in linking mechanistic food-web ecology with hydromorphology, habitat dynamics, artificial floods, and adaptive river management.
- Excellent communication and data analysis skills.
- Interest in mentoring junior researchers, including master’s students, is a plus.
- Lab and departmental working languages are English.
- Interest in learning and/or knowledge of a Swiss national language is helpful for fieldwork and outreach.
Benefits
- Working environment where people with different experiences, strengths, and perspectives can fully contribute and further develop.
- Promotion of genuine participation, exchange, and mutual understanding.
- Structures that enable compatibility of work and other areas of life, such as care work.
- Continuous efforts to reduce barriers.
- Support with possible flexible workplace, working hours, and job design solutions.
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Über uns
Das Team
The position is within the Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution (FishEc), located on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Kastanienbaum, Switzerland. Collaboration will occur with researchers from the Department of Aquatic Ecology in Dübendorf, ETH Zürich’s Department of Environmental Systems Science (USYS), and Zürich University of Applied Sciences’ Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) (ZHAW).