Environmental Impact Assessment systems have been set up worldwide and have become a powerful environment safeguards in the project planning process. This course is intended to enable students to appreciate the purpose of EIA in the decision making processes and to understand the strengths of EIA in regard to environment management, as well as to appreciate the technical and social/ political limitations of EIA. The course introduces, describes, and enables students to appreciate that the best way to control environmental degradation is by predicting the possible irreversible negative effects of development and their mitigation or alternatives.
Land Use Planning and Development deals with land use planning, urban growth, land management and sustainable development.
The environmental and human impacts of urban development on land use conversion will be analyzed and discussed. Land use issues at the urban-rural fringe, Land capability assessment as a planning tool. Land use and Environmental planning and regulation.
The Planning process and planning tools for Land use management. Non-regulatory means of resolving land use conflicts. The use of GIS for land use analysis and management. Land use classification scheme and supervised classification of land cover types from remote sensing data. Planning models for sustainable environments. What are the different modes of organizing land ownership? Since land is both a public and private good, who is entitled to the benefits that accrue from land?
The course is designed to impart skills and advanced knowledge to students in order to apply remote sensing and GIS technologies for the sustainable management and use of natural resources. During this course, students are made aware of the practical importance of remote sensing and GIS technologies. The course emphasizes the skills and practicability of remote sensing and GIS. The students are introduced to in-depth concepts and principles and how to carry out simple and complex projects involving remote sensing and GIS tools. Collection of field primary spatial data is emphasized.
The course covers aspects of population factors - size, distribution, and composition. Population Distribution Trends and Patterns, Environmental Implications of Population Distribution and dynamics, mediating factors: science and technology, institutions and policy, culture and Scientific Technological Factors, Specific Arenas of Interaction: Climate Change and Land-Use Change.
Natural resource ecology, conservation & management describes how ecological concepts and processes are applied at various scales to conserve and manage renewable natural resources (e.g., plants, animals, water, soil) in terrestrial and aquatic systems—it explains how ecological science is applied to help solve real-world problems. In most cases, these problems are caused by the actions of people, and the course emphasizes potential conservation and management strategies to mitigate anthropogenic issues such as, but not limited to, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, disease, and climate change.
Monitoring and auditing are key elements of contemporary environmental management. This subject will examine the different roles of monitoring, including prediction and monitoring environmental impacts, calibration and evaluation of environmental models, and monitoring and auditing as part of the risk management cycle. In this subject you will examine field sampling across a range of chemical, physical and biological indicators.