Code Course Description Semester Offered Prerequisite
ED76.05
ED76.09
ED76.11
Integrated Land Use Management Systems
Integrated Natural Resources Planning
and Policy
Natural Resource Economics
Integrated land use systems, which combine ele-ments of farming, forestry, pastoralism and aqua-culture are an important component of land use in tropical and subtropical Asia. These are traditional as well as modern types of integrated land use.
The focus of the course will be on agroforestry systems (swidden cultivation, forest gardens, taungya) and on integrated agriculture-aquacul-ture systems. Integrated land use systems are capable of contributing significantly to sustainable land use, economic diversification, watershed protection and biodiversity conservation. The course will provide students with a knowledge of the various types of integrated land use systems, as well as with an understanding of their ecology and economics. The aim of the course is to en-able students to assess and enhance the sustain-ability of integrated land use systems.
Planning for natural resources management is mainly concerned with reconciling use of natural resources with conservation of natural resources and of the environment as a whole. The aim of the course is to provide master’s level students with an understanding of environmental, socio-economic and policy perspectives on resource relationships, with an insight into the paradigms of conservation and sustainable development, and with a policy background to an understanding of resource use and planning issues. Another im-portant aim is to familiarize students with modern planning tools for natural resources management and conservation, such as strategies for sustain-able development & environmental impact stud-ies.
(1) To understand the relationship between natu-ral resources and economics, as well as the role and importance of environmental issues in eco-nomic development. (2) To use and critically as-sess methods applicable for the measurement of environmental problems, cost benefit analysis, cost effectiveness analysis.
August
January
January
None
None
None
Program
Field of Study — Natural Resource Management (NRM)
Code Course Description Semester Offered Prerequisite
ED76.13
Society and Natural Resource Management
Research Design for Natural Resources
Management
Land Resources Management
Degradation of natural resources has undermined the supporting capacity of the ecosystem. This has direct link with the current issues of food security, poverty alleviation and environmental conserva-tion including the global environmental processes, e.g. climate change. Hence, understanding of the natural resources degradation is vital for formulating integrative and suitable conservation strategies to respond to the challenges of sustainable food pro-duction and reversing environmental problem. This course provides students with the concept, types, causes and impacts of various types of natural re-sources degradation. Students will learn about the tools, methodologies and indicators to assess and monitor degradation extent and severity and also basic concept of good practices for conserving the important natural resources.
Natural resource managers are faced with a wide range of issues and responsibilities they must effec-tively address. Most of such issues have a social component. It is therefore important for the natural resource planners and managers to have an under-standing of social dimensions of the complex natural resource issues so that they can take consideration of these factors in planning and implementation of projects related to natural resources management.
Students in Natural Resources Management will be undertaking field research in order to complete their M.Sc. or Ph.D. degrees. As such, an understand-ing of how to design and execute a research plan and present research findings based on scientific analysis is of utmost importance. This course will fill the need by providing lectures and hands-on experi-ence in research formulation that parallels students crafting of their own research questions for the re-search proposal and employing appropriate statisti-cal techniques during data analysis.
Addressing food security has remained a challeng-ing issue. Ever increaschalleng-ing food demand, persistchalleng-ing land degradation problem and increasing competi-tion for land for other purposes than food produc-tion has compounded to the complexity of the is-sue. Besides, there is increasing concern over the important role of land use with the other important global change issues, like climate change, land deg-radation and biodiversity loss. Hence, it is important to understand the critical yet complex roles of land for managing land resources judiciously, which re-quires a holistic and integrated approach. Hence, it is important to understand the critical complex roles of nland. The course will provide the students with the concept and issues of these interrelated links,
August
Program
Field of Study — Natural Resource Management (NRM)
Code Course Description Semester Offered Prerequisite
ED76.17
ED76.9002
Geospatial Techniques in Natural Resources
Management
International Forestry Resources and
Institutions
Natural resources monitoring, planning and man-agement requires location specific geographic data. Scientific geospatial tools and techniques, such as but not limited to, Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), are widely used to observe, quantify and analyze the issues related to natural resources resulting from vari-ous human-environment processes at multiple geographic scales. The course provides the stu-dents the concepts of geographic data/informa-tion, concepts and principle of remotes sensing, GIS, and GPS. The course puts special empha-sis to equip the students with knowledge and skill in applying these tools and techniques in the con-text of natural resources management, such as land, forest, biodiversity.
This is a two-month, intensive training course on Common Pool Resource theory and the multi-disciplinary, crosscutting research and analytical methods of IFRI to examine the institutional ar-rangements and local management of forests.
The IFRI research program intends to address issues such as: determining how to change pro-cesses leading to deforestation in many countries of the world; assessing what types of institutions are associated with sustainable forest practices;
and helping policymakers and forest users to de-sign more effective forest policies. IFRI provides a way for people to collect, store, and analyze data over time about forests and the communities that use forests. It can be used to conduct base-line studies; measure change over time in forest conditions and in local governance structures;
and share information with pertinent and inter-ested colleagues. (http://www.umich.edu/~ifri/) This training course will be a combination of lec-tures, field work, and group-based learning.
August
InterSem
None
Program
Field of Study — Natural Resource Management (NRM)
Code Course Description Semester Offered Prerequisite
ED76.9003
ED76.9004
ED76.9005
Dynamic Modeling of Environmental
Systems:
Soil and Water Conservation for Agro-environmental
Management
Land Use and Climate Change
January
January
August
None
None
None The world consists of many environmental
sys-tems, with biological, technological, economic and social dimensions. Besides their diver-sity, most of these systems are complex, which means that the vast number of interacting com-ponents, factors, flows and stocks they include make it very difficult to understand and predict their behavior under ever-changing conditions.
Further, such evolving conditions (e.g. climate change, natural resources evolution, social and economic changes and decisions) demand pro-spective and multidisciplinary investigations to support environmental policies. With recent ad-vances in computer and software, powerful and user-friendly technological options are now avail-able for simulation-based investigations, making use of dynamic modeling tools. The course provides the students concepts and principles of dynamic modeling (DM). Examples illustrate the multidisciplinary nature of dynamic modeling of environmental systems, help the students to gradually acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in dynamic system thinking and modeling.
Lab-based practicals, guided- and self-research on own project form the last part of the course, meant to provide the students with operating know-how on current most widely-used DM plat-forms in natural resources management.
Environment in an area/region is deeply related with the ways of manipulation and exploitation of soil and water, the two most significant natural resources especially in the agriculture-domi-nated Asian countries. An understanding of the issues involved in agriculture and environment from different standpoints (scientific, socio-eco-nomic, area-specific etc. is very important for the students who are interested in environmental and natural sciences.
Climate change impacts are inevitable although may vary in its magnitude from place to place.
Land use being one of the major causes of cli-mate change and the fact that enormous land use change occurring in Asia driven by several reasons, particularly for the need of meeting the food demands. Given the crucial role of land, the issue is becoming more complex in the face of food insecurity, poverty alleviation and emerging issue of climate change impact. This course in-tends to introduce the students intrinsic linkage between land use and climate change to am-ply equip them with the knowledge of the land use change and climate change science, role of land use on mitigation and adaptation of climate