In the ‘biotic’ part of the programme, you will describe the ecological status of a Dutch water body, according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD), and analyze the results in contrast with outcomes in another EU country. There are courses in: aquatic organisms, ecosystems, project monitoring and future monitoring techniques, the WFD and other relevant directives, and laws and treaties. You will get training in sampling and aquatic species determination, ecological assessment of field data and scientific data analysis and reporting. International experience comes in the form of a field trip to the Harz mountains at the start of the programme and a visit to Brussels to see how the EU works.
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Although this is the ‘abiotic’ part of the programme, it links to biota. You will study possible future changes for a water system in the EU to be used as a preparation study for area redevelopment. Here you will look into the geophysical features of the system and describing scenarios such as climate change, hydro morphological changes and land-use changes. Besides this, you will follow courses in (a) landscape, geology, geomorphology, soils and land use, (b) climate and climate change, and (c) hydrology, water systems in the EU, and flora and fauna communities. Also, you will receive training in geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS), and in modelling a water balance.
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