Research Task 3 Development and use in the marine environment of long-term stable nutrient and oxygen sensors

PhD position. Supervisors: Dr Anders Tengberg and Prof. Per Hall. Host: Göteborg University.

Project description: Environmental sampling and measurements in coastal seas are normally made about once per month from ships. Many state variables in the sea change on considerably shorter time-scales than that, which means that we today have a limited knowledge about many biogeochemical processes and about the speed of environmental changes in the sea. One way to improve our knowledge is to install so called long-term observatories on the sea-floor. On the observatories there are instruments and sensors which with high temporal resolution measure important chemical parameters in seawater. The purpose of this project is to further develop and test sensors for nutrients and oxygen. Important demands on the sensors include long-term stability and  adequate accuracy and repeatability. The Ph. D. student will work in a research group with a broad national and international multidisciplinary cooperation in Europe, and within the research platform Tellus at UGOT (www.tellus.science.gu.se). She/he will work together with other Ph.D. students in the group, who are focussing on related research tasks. A prioritized task for the Ph.D. student will be, in collaboration with European colleagues in an EU project, to develop long-term stable sensors for nutrients and oxygen. The sensors will then be used / tested in the Koljo Fjord and the By Fjord on the Swedish west coast, and in the eastern Gotland Basin of the Baltic Sea to study the dynamics of the turnover of nitrogen and phosphorus in these basins, and how it is dependent on oxygen.