Contents:
In regional environmental management many, often conflicting, interests have to be taken into account. In this process the importance of ecosystems and ecosystem services are often neglected. For balanced decision-making, it is necessary to analyse the impacts of human interventions in a given ecosystem or region in an integrated way, taking due account of all main ecosystem services, the economic, social, institutional and ecological context, and stakeholders’ interests and perceptions. The course starts with an introduction of a regional environmental management framework, concepts and tools with special emphasis on ecosystem services and natural capital accounting. Students will practice with these tools in case studies and apply them to selected regional environmental management issues.
Learning outcomes:
After successful completion of this course the students are expected to be able to:
- explain, critically discuss and apply the main regional environmental management tools;
- understand the different approaches to map and value ecosystem services and natural capital and apply this information in trade-off analysis;
- understand and apply basic models that can be used in support of regional environmental management and describe the importance of uncertainties;
- identify, understand and assess stakeholder perspectives in regional environmental management;
- understand how main institutional and financing instruments for ecosystem services can be applied to improve regional environmental management;
- apply regional environmental management tools within a multidisciplinary project team.
