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, with a focus on aquatic toxicity. The assignments will explicitly situate the basic ecological 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, exemplified in the domain of water and toxicity.
During the course we will study a wide range of 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, wicked problems 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 threats 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
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
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
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Alena Gsell, Gerard Breeman, and Henrik Barmentlo
Remarks
Other students than MSc Governance of Sustainability that are interested in following this course need to contact the study advisors of the programme via studyadvisor-gofs@cml.leidenuniv.nl
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.