Admission requirements
This course is obligatory for students of the MSc Governance of Sustainability.
Description
This course is focused on the sustainable governance of our global water resources. Sustainable management of global water resources is one of the most pressing environmental challenges of the 21st century. The basics of the course will link our current understanding on key aquatic ecological processes, and how these processes are currently affected by major anthropogenic stressors contaminants, with a focus on aquatic toxicity. At the same time, it will explicitly situate the basic analysis within an governance context. The course will demonstrate how scientific analyses are used in political debates and policy making and how policy framing and political choices constrain and enable research in the domain of water and toxicity.
During the course we will study a wide range of different subjects that are needed to analyse water and toxicity problems and make policy decisions to address these issues in the context of multiple policy frames and regulations. The subject analysis ranges from ecological topics (e.g., resilience theory, alternative stable states, nutrient cycling, hydrological cycle), current water sustainability issues, to stressors as studied within ecotoxicology (e.g., various contaminations’ fate and accumulation, effects as well as different ways of determining the health of an organism or ecosystem). The governance subjects range from the introduction of the legal frameworks (e.g. water framework directive, nitrates directive and waste water directive), to the framing analysis of policy debates (e.g. policy discourses in media and political arenas, boundary work, rhetoric, policy integration and policy images) and stakeholders perspectives (actors involvement).
Course objectives
After completing this course, students can:
Understand and explain the current state of water sustainability issues, including biodiversity decline, impacts from climate change, water scarcity, salinization, etc.
Apply basic ecological concepts on the functioning of aquatic ecological systems to evaluate how impacts should be assessed related to the key anthropogenic treats to these systems.
Identify and synthesize different methodologies to study impacts on aquatic systems and apply these techniques to study impacts in different scenarios
Explain and discuss trade-offs related to decision making on the various functions that are expected from aquatic ecosystems
Critically analyze a contemporary case-study bridging toxicity impacts on natural waterways to local water governance, and then create policy recommendation for future decision-making
Design a policy statement based on a framing analysis of policy documents, media, and political statements.
Timetable
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have successfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
Lectures
Field components (excursion)
Presentation
Written assignments
Assessment method
This course contains three assignments (both group and individual):
Assignment 1 - Group assignment analyzing, interpreting, and summarizing environmental assessment data; poster presentation and creating a factsheet (40%). Excursion attendance, group participation and poster presentation are part of this assignment and will be part of the assessment.
Assignment 2 – Group assignment focusing on governance themes around case-study; oral presentation and participation in ‘sandpit day’ (40%). Group participation during working on the assignment, and during the sandpit day will be assessed, as well as the presentation during that sandpit day.
Assignment 3 – Individual assignment, stakeholder policy recommendation/brief, anonymously peer-evaluated (20%). This assignment will take place during the sand pit day and student presence in class room is mandatory.
Each assignment will receive individual feedback. To pass the course, a minimum grade of 5.5 must be attained for each assignment.
More detailed information about the assignments can be found in the syllabus on Brightspace.
Reading list
Course materials will consist of amongst all academic journal article, parts of an free accessible e-book, regulatory guidance documents and parts of reports. The readings will be integrated into the lectures or will be used within the
assignments done by the students. The link to articles will be provided.
Registration
Students can register themselves via MyStudymap for each course, exam and retake. Do this on time, before the start of the course. You can view your personal schedule in MyTimetable after logging in. Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
After registering for an exam, you must confirm your attendance via MyStudymap. Without this confirmation, you are not allowed to participate in the exam or retake of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.
Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.
Furthermore, there are two registration periods per year:
First semester / fall semester: opens in July
Second semester / spring semester: opens in December
More information about course and exam enrolment can be found here
Contact
Henrik Barmentlo, Alena Gsell, and Gerard Breeman
Remarks
MSc Governance of Sustainabilty students can register for the course and exam via uSis. Other students need to contact the study advisors of the programme via studyadvisor-gofs@cml.leidenuniv.nl