The use of rangeland in the MRB has changed and, environment, economy and society are under increasing pressure. Together with partners in the initiative, an information system for people with direct or indirect interest in the MRB rangeland areas will be developed. Information could be in the form of advice, options, maps, tables, etc. and could be shared by Web or possibly mobile communication. Users are considered as “ProdUsers” as they are users and producers of information about the Mara rangelands.

A rangeland carrying capacity model will be adapted and implemented to assess sustainability of decisions by individuals and society. This model will act as an early warning system and as tool to assess management alternatives and feed this assessment into the Mara rangeland information system. It will heavily rely on continuous streams of satellite and survey data to assess demand and supply of biomass for livestock and wildlife.

Job specification

You will work together with other partners of the consortium (e.g. Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente in the Netherlands, Kenya Wildlife Service, WWF-Kenya, Maasai Mara University (MMU) to develop a Mara rangeland information system. You will:

• Communicate with actors and stakeholders to identify user/product requirements.
• Contribute to the institutionalization of the Mara rangeland information system
• Contribute to system design, which is done by multiple stakeholders.
• Implement the carrying capacity model as developed by rangeland model developers using ILWIS Next Generation, with assistance from ITC. The server side software will be based on the ilwis-objects framework, a c++/python based framework for accessing diverse data sources and implementing GIS and RS modelling/algorithms.
• Carry-out the implementation and technical documentation of this Mara rangeland information system
• Coordinate your activities with staff in WWF/ITC/MMU and other initiative members.
• Work independently most of the time, with assistance at critical moments

Your position

You will be working with and based at UPANDE Inc. a MaMaSe partner. You will closely collaborate with a team of 10 applied scientists in the Faculty of Geographic Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), of the University of Twente, which is the funding partner to the MaMaSe Sustainable Water initiative and has a strong presence in Kenya with some 500 alumni.

You will form a team together with the modeler developing the carrying capacity model and the Mara rangeland information system, who will be based at a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Headquarters in Nairobi. At periods you may need to be based the KWS offices.

Duration

Start March 1st 2015

Your profile

Education/ degree: MSc in computer science, geoinformatics, or equivalent. The suitable candidate meets the following essential requirements:

• Java or equivalent (C++, C#); the candidate should be able to fully-develop
• The web-development stack HTML/JavaScript/CSS/PHP, or alternatively Java o Is independent and communicative
• The suitable candidate also has the following desirable knowledge of:
• SQL (PostgreSQL or equivalent, PostGIS (or GIS extensions on the equivalent scripting language like Python, MS-DOS batch files, or the Unix shell script
• o UML
• Eclipse or equivalent IDE’s (QT creator, MS Visual Studio)
• Software versioning and revision control systems such as SVN, GitHub or Bazaar
• GEONETCast
• GeoNode technology stack
• Linux
• Knowledge of the Maasai Mara area and an understanding of the problems