Research Projects

Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images to determine the influence of paleo-rivers on the distribution of microvertebrates

Supervisors: Dr Neftali Sillero and Dr João Campos

Host Institution: Universidade do Porto, Faculty of Sciences (Portugal)

Phd enrolment: Universidade do Porto, Faculty of Sciences (Portugal)

Objectives:

  1. To identify paleo-rivers using SAR images.
  2. To model the potential distribution of microvertebrates with and without the distribution of paleo-rivers as a predictor with ecological niche models such as Maxent and Random Forest.
  3. Determine the most influential variables to the distribution of the species.

Expected results:

  1. Developing a new tool based on SAR images to identify archaeological sites near paleo-rivers.
  2. Predictive model of the potential distribution of microvertebrates.
  3. Quantification of variable contributions to the distribution of the species.
  4. Provide a user-friendly application based on Google Earth Engine to derive paleo-rivers.

Planned secondment(s):

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Archaeology will offer complementary resources in palaeogeography that will enrich this project, namely related to paleo-rivers. Dr. Berto will act as co-supervisor during a secondment spanning from 2 to 6 months. The secondment period will begin after the third month of the second year of the DC contract. The dates will be subject to changes based on the progress of the IRP.