Courses objectives
Ecological engineering is understood here as the implementation of principles and understanding of the functioning and structure of ecosystems, including their self-organisation capacity, for the creation of systems or the management and restoration of ecosystems to sustainably deliver ecosystem services in a wide sense (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). Its current development is supported by the need for a truly sustainable management of ecosystems based on financial and physical resources expected to decrease in the mid and long term but supported by on-going, dramatic progresses in fundamental and applied ecology. The application envisaged here focus on ecosystem and landscape scale in the tropics, although the principles of ecological engineering are largely generic. Although lectures focus on ecological dimension of projects, the course supports the essentially integrated design of a project in ecological engineering. The student will be led to articulate theoretical and practical knowledge.
Course contents
- Lectures: Introduction to the basic concepts of ecological engineering and its broad fields of application (silviculture, ecological restoration, agroforestry, biodiversity management). The specifics of ecological engineering in a tropical environment. Methodological and conceptual frameworks of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) International and the Restoring Natural Capital (RNC) Alliance.
- Practical work: Design of an ecological engineering project from case studies. Issues to be addressed: analysis of the problem; constraints; identification of methods; design of an action plan (ecosystem to landscape scales); Critical debate on the politico-socio-economic dimensions of the proposal.
Teaching and learning methods
- Lectures (approximately 8 hours)
- Practical work (16 hours) supervised by the educational staff and external experts.
Course evaluation
Written report and oral defence of the project in front of a panel of experts.
Target skills
Students acquire the fundamentals of ecological engineering and the specifics of its application to tropical ecosystems, a first experience of project design in ecological engineering.
