290082 SE Seminar: Land Use Change (2006W)

Prerequisite: as designed for MSc Programme "Theoretical and Applied Geography" and Graduate Studies in Education.

The seminar deals with a central sapect of Global Environmental Change, namely the impacts major historical changes of land use and land cover on the environment. Deforestation, overgrazing of rangeland in drylands, heavy use of fertilizers and irrigation and changes to lakes and rivers provide specific examples. Impacts of this land use change at local (e.g. soil erosion or eutrophication of lakes) and and global scale (e.g. coastal erosion) will be considered. Special emphasis will be placed on methodological problems associated with prediction (e.g. scale problems; complex system response, whether through threshold changes, system resilience or response times; distinguishing the effects of climate change from those of human activity).

Nature of examination: marks in the course will be based on written and oral performance during class times.