Inactive

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Northeastern Area (NEA), Beltsville Area Research Center (BARC), Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory (HRSL) and Adaptive Cropping Systems Laboratory (ACSL)... The Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Northeastern Area (NEA), Beltsville Area Research Center (BARC), Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory (HRSL) and Adaptive Cropping Systems Laboratory (ACSL) requires contractor support in scientific applications for several projects supporting earth system science and applications. This acquisition is to support scientific research project needs of the two laboratories as indicated above. This contract needs to provide up to 4 full-time 40-hour work-week professional scientific labor positions per year. Positions are designated as either Senior Engineer, Senior Scientist, or Scientist based on scientific degree (i.e. Ph.D., or M.S.) and documented experience as related to projects defined in task orders. Categories include expertise in Earth Science, Crop Modeling, and Information Technology / Software Development in Agricultural Systems. Specific purposes and objectives are subdivided by two laboratories as indicated below : HRSL is tasked with developing new approaches for measuring water cycle components within agricultural landscapes. A variety of techniques can be utilized for making these measurements. For instance, ground-based sensors are used to measure rainfall accumulation and the amount of water moving within a stream channel. Water balance models are used to convert rainfall measurements into estimates of soil moisture, evaporation and stream flow. Observations made by satellites orbiting the earth can be converted into estimates of soil moisture or evaporation from the land surface. Finally, each of these different techniques can be combined together. For example, remote sensing observations can be integrated into a land surface model to improve the accuracy of their predictions (a technique commonly referred to as “data assimilation.”) Applying each of these techniques requires the application of state-of-the-art data management and processing approaches to obtain sufficiently accurate estimates of various water balance components. In addition, water balance component estimates must be validated against independently-acquired observations before they can be used with confidence. Establishing the relevance of soil moisture estimates for monitoring agricultural production and informing drought mitigation is also a priority. ACSL is tasked with obtaining empirical knowledge of crop system responses to soil, climate, management factors and developing mathematical models that can be used to study agricultural cropping systems resiliency. Over 20 years of U.S. commodity crop yield, growth, and development responses to multiple experimental treatment conditions has been developed by the laboratory. Computerized methods to store and perform data-mining operations on this unique set of information need to be developed to test and improve existing mechanistic, process-level crop and soil models that are being constructed in the laboratory. Graphical user interface software, along with database management approaches, need to be developed to further increase the usefulness of these modeling tools for stakeholders. This can include desktop and web-based software development. Annual experiments are also conducted in state-of-the-art growth chamber systems that require development and maintenance real-time software tools to monitor and record data collected at 30 second intervals. A substantial need for a computer scientist / programmer therefore exists to ensure quality and improve scientific impact and quality of ACSL data and model products.