About the program:
The Ross Center for Sustainable Cities builds on WRI’s global and local experience in urban planning and mobility and uses proven solutions and action-oriented tools to make the fast-growing urban environment more resilient to new challenges. The Urban Development Program is committed to designing and influencing urban spaces that build resilience, improve health, and equitably connect people and opportunities. As part of the Data For Cool Cities Initiative , our data team is developing geospatial datasets, analytics and tools to support urban decision makers in implementing cooling infrastructure for reducing population exposure to extreme heat.
Internship Highlight:
Reporting to the Data Product Manager of the Cities Data team, you will contribute to the development of urban heat analysis and datasets that can support European and Global South cities in addressing extreme heat challenges.
You will participate in identifying, documenting and collecting heat-related datasets specific for European context, conduct geospatial data analysis for understanding the spatial distribution and severity of urban heat in different cities, produce statistical analysis and maps for estimating the cooling impact of heat-resilient infrastructure (tree cover, shade, water bodies etc).
What you will do:
In this role, you will:
- Collect, document, clean and analyze geospatial data for better assessing urban heat stress in different European Cities (Land Surface Temperature, Air temperature, tree canopy, urban population distribution, urban infrastructure...)
- Perform data analysis on existing data, and support research for identifying alternative data sources (specific for European context) and calculating geospatial indicators
- Develop spatial analysis and produce static and interactive maps for addressing use cases identified by our stakeholders: identifying urban hotspots, mapping priority areas for implementing cooling infrastructure, estimating cooling benefits of various cooling interventions scenarios, estimating population exposure to extreme heat
- Document methodology and communicate finding and insights with the data team
- Contribute to blogs, data visualization and other communication products
Your internship supervisor will be the Data Product Manager based in the Hague, NL, and you will work closely with the wider data team led by the Global Manager of Cities Data & Tools team based in Washington, DC.
What you will need:
- Confident use of Python and/or R
- Familiarity with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), spatial analysis tools (QGIS, Google Earth Engine, Carto etc) and geospatial libraries (rasterstat, xarray, shapefile, geopandas, sf, rasterio, gee etc)
- Familiarity with working with geospatial datasets (satellite imagery, climate data, census, urban features etc) and geospatial data formats (both raster and vector data)
- Familiarity with statistics and geo-statistics concepts and methods
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to document methodology
- Currently pursuing a degree in GIS, Geo-information and earth observation computer science, data science, computational urban planning, quantitative geography, environmental modelling
- Must be registered in a study program with a Dutch college or university for the full duration of the internship
- You are proficient in verbal and written English
Conditions of the internship:
- This is a 6 month internship with a start date of 16 September 2024.
- This internship will be based at the WRI Europe office in The Hague with some flexibility to work from home.
- This internship offers a reimbursement of 700 euros per month based on full-time working hours (32 hours per week).
How to apply:
Please submit a resume and cover letter by 21 July 2024 . Applicants must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered. You are encouraged to link to any relevant blogs, projects or other pieces of work that demonstrate your suitability for the internship.
About Us:
Founded in 1982, World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, nonprofit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity, and human well-being. We are working to address seven critical challenges that the world must overcome this decade to secure a sustainable future for people and the planet: climate change, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities, and the ocean. WRI has a global staff of over 1,800 people with work spanning 60 countries. We have offices in Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the United States, as well as a growing presence in other countries and regions.
The foundation of our work is delivering high-quality research, data, maps, and analysis to solve the world’s greatest environment and international development challenges and improve people’s lives. We work with leaders in government, business, and civil society to drive ambitious action and create change on the ground. Equally important, we bring together partners to develop breakthrough ideas and scale-up solutions for far-reaching, enduring impact.
Our mission and values:
WRI’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.
Our values are shared ideals that bind us together: Integrity, Innovation, Urgency, Independence, Respect.
Our culture:
WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices. We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment, we embrace all diversity and encourage women, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. Recognizing our strong commitment to gender equality, WRI has also been awarded EDGE certification.
Our team carefully reviews all applications.
