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Course module: UCSCIEAR31
UCSCIEAR31
Resources and their Sustainable Management
Course info
Course codeUCSCIEAR31
EC7.5
Course goals
After completing this course students are able to:
  • describe the geological and human drivers affecting natural resource availability . 
  • develop models that provide insight in natural ecosystem dynamics and can be used to design ecosystem conservation and restoration strategies.
  • explain which natural strategies exist to cope with change forced upon an environmental system
  • discuss how ecology and earth science relate to societal issues.
Content
Perhaps the most important question in the field of Sustainability is how to prudently manage natural resources in their broadest sense in a time dominated by human activity, the Anthropocene. How long the impact of current human activities on planet Earth will last will largely depend on how societies choose to manage natural resources in the coming century. In this course, we identify the driving geological and anthropogenic forces determining the availability of natural resources. We will apply this knowledge when learning to develop predictive models for ecosystem dynamics, strategies to combat current societal problems arising from inappropriate resource management, and use classical economic geology obtain insight in technological solutions assisting sustainable resource management.
We develop predictive ecosystem models, starting with relatively simple interactions between species and their resources. We will also use these models to explore the consequences of recent findings in the literature that species actively modify the availability of their required resources. Also, we use modelling tools in order to understand recent observations showing that even when environmental changes are very smooth and gradual, ecosystem responses may occur very rapidly and suddenly, a phenomenon called catastrophic shifts. We will also study ore bodies, which are the result of very special geological conditions and formation processes that are rare events. In class we discuss how fossils fuels are formed and compare natural formation rates with current extraction rates. Various options how to mitigate atmospheric CO2 rise including underground CO2 storage and enhanced silicate weathering are being examined along with how rock weathering leads to mineral water with distinct and quite variable compositions. Magma composition is associated with volcanic risk. In class you will examine thin sections of a pertinent rock collection with a light microscope to discover minerals and rock properties by yourself.

Format
Students learn from class lectures, and from scrutinizing primary literature. Web-based support is available for part of the course material. After a general course overview, the team of instructors teaches topics related to ecology and earth science in equal weight. Ecological topics include population dynamics, ecosystem engineers and catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Earth science topics include the finiteness of resources, underground storage and stockage, hydrogeochemistry and mineral waters, and volcanic hazards.
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Kies de Nederlandse taal