What are the responsibilities and job description for the Summer Undergraduate Student Researcher position at chapman?
Wildfires can worsen floods by removing vegetation that stabilizes soil, increasing the likelihood of erosion and runoff during post-fire storms. The flood risk facing communities downstream of protective flood infrastructure increases when sediment-laden streamflow fills that flood infrastructure with sediment and debris. One potential solution for reducing wildfire risk and, thus, post-fire flood risk is forest restoration: for example, the removal of highly flammable, invasive plants along roadways prone to wildfire ignitions. The goal of this research project is to model the impact on post-fire flood risk of a forest restoration project proposed by the U.S. Forest Service to remove invasive plants along Ortega Highway in the Cleveland National Forest in Riverside County. The Undergraduate Student Researcher will be responsible for estimating model parameters to apply a Post-Fire Flood Hazard Model to mountain canyons upstream of flood infrastructure impacted by the forest restoration project. Job responsibilities include retrieving publicly available environmental data, analyzing data using basic statistics, and following an existing methodology to calculate model parameters. Knowledge of how to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze spatial data is required (ArcGIS Pro is preferred, but QGIS is also acceptable). Knowledge of how to apply programming skills for data analysis is required (familiarity with R and MATLAB is preferred but not required).
