Climate Change and Natural Resource Management

International Summer School

June 18 - 23, 2012

University of Zagreb
Faculty of Agriculture
Zagreb | Croatia

Overview

Frequent droughts and floods all around the world, but also in Europe, highlighted the need for the soil and water resources to be better managed. Therefore, the course program was developed to provide students at the MA and PhD level with the knowledge and skills necessary for managing natural environment within the context of climate change. The modules of the course are organized in the way to provide an insight into environmental implications of climate change, methods for research the soil – water – plant continuum, including also understanding of the role of climate change on natural resource management, particularly water and soil environments, as well as nutrient and pollutant flows and developing effective survey methodologies of land assessment. Students are expected to develop a good understanding of the sustainability of the natural resource management, from the aspects of both agriculture and environmental protection.

Course format

The course will be provided on the basis of a combination of lectures and practical sessions that reinforce the previously presented theoretical notions. The participants are expected to be PhD students and advanced Master students with excellent skills. Tuition will be in English, and participants are therefore required to have a good comprehension of written and spoken English. Students will earn 4 ECTS credits upon successful completion of the course.

Aims

The general aims of this course are:

• to develop a good understanding of the natural resource management as an adaptation approach to global climate change, and
• to improve student mobility and multilateral cooperation between higher education institutions in the area of agriculture, resource management and sustainable development

After finishing the course, students are supposed to be able to understand and solve typical problems concerning the next issues:

• Climate change and resources management: Water and Soil
• Interactions: Rhizosphere and Soil-water-plant continuum
• Management: Solute transport in soil and modelling & Sustained agriculture and soil protection

Target students

The target groups are graduate and PhD students from different countries and from a life science disciplines.

Certificate awarded in terms of EU recognized credits: 4 ECTS. Modules have compulsory coursework elements.

Programme Co-ordinator:

University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture, Zagreb, Croatia