Courses

This course intends to provide insight into the nature, main causes, consequences, and possible solutions to meeting increasing demands for food production, especially from an environmental point of view. It covers different areas of crop production, animal husbandry, forestry, and food security. Emphasis is given to promising sustainable ways of management in food production, and a new trend of producing renewable energy from agricultural and forestry sectors, especially in temperate climates.

The focus will be placed on the current state of the Lesvos island ecosystem and its sub-systems (environmental and socio-economic sub-systems), the identification of their basic structure, key components and the interactions within and between them. Furthermore, during this course, students will analyse the current policy strategies and will develop future policy scenarios to investigate their impact on the sustainability state of the Lesvos ecosystem. 
The methodological tools to be used include the DPSIR framework, integrated environmental reporting and modelling.

Climate change, UNFCC, Kyoto Protocol and IPCC reports have promoted carbon cycling in ecosystems from a phenomenon interesting only to biogeochemistry scholars to a headline of global agendas and a core item of financial mechanisms and policy proposals. In this course we are looking at:
- carbon turnover in terrestrial ecosystems;
- human footprint on carbon storages; and
- policy, regulatory and institutional mechanisms established under the UNFCCC to promote carbon storage, protect carbon sinks, and account for carbon sinks and stocks.

This course is intended to provide students with understanding of the context in which environmental management is embedded within organisations, the complexity of the external "business environment" vis-à-vis environment and the basic concepts of environmental strategies for organisations.

The aim of this unit is to develop students’ knowledge and skills related to assessment of impacts of various human activities on the environment.

To explore some of the major themes in contemporary environmental philosophy. The objective is not just to present ideas and arguments as objects of knowledge (though students will be expected to develop an understanding of major debates in the literature), but to help students come to their own informed and reasoned views on the key issues.

Global environmental politics is dominated by certain key discourses that organize our thinking (and acting).  Such discourses can determine what is and isn't a "problem"; who gets to make the rules; and who gets (and doesn't get) what and why.  In this course, we will take up the difficult task of exploring globalization as a predominantly neoliberalist discourse.  Ultimately, we will examine the relationship between the neoliberalist agenda and the environment.  

Many of the most polluting activities associated with humans concern industrial processes. Since the industrial revolution industry has concentrated on production and, initially, paid little attention to the wastes it produces. Consequently, there are many examples of severe air, land and water pollution in and around industrial centers.
These have had devastating effects on human health and ecosystems. New regulations control many activities so that hazardous discharges are not allowed. Undoubtedly, the environmental issue in most (industrial) countries throughout the world in the 80s and 90s has been and will continue to be how to best manage hazardous waste.
This issue has manifested itself in the form of two questions:
• how to prevent environmental deterioration caused by the generation of hazardous wastes? and  
• how to effect clean-up of the problems caused by past examples of improper disposal?

The course focuses on environmental management as "the art of getting things done through people" in private and public organizations.

The aim of this unit is to introduce to students the idea, methodology and basic tools of environmental modeling. Models are essential in environmental management. In order to better understand environmental systems, to predict their behaviour and to develop effective management strategies it is crucially important to bring together ecological, socio-economic and technological aspects of the specific environmental problem. To secure such an interdisciplinary analysis of the numerous factors, consensus-building among various experts and facilitate results communication to the decision-makers the system dynamics and process-based modelling techniques are often used. Though different alternative approaches to environmental modelling are to be discussed the course will mainly focus on obtaining practical skills in process-based simulation.

In this course students will continue their practical acquaintance with geospatial mapping and analysis using ArcView and some free software packages (to be specified). The course introduces digital analysis of geospatial phenomena and provides foundations in methods and algorithms used in GIS analysis. It builds up on the practical skills in geospatial data mining and practical skills in using GIS tools obtained during “ICT for environmental professionals” course. In addition to our last term activities on geospatial data visualization we will concentrate more on data processing and analysis.

The oceans of the world cover two thirds of the Earth’s surface and play a key role in supporting life on the planet. Humans affect the oceans either directly or indirectly, mainly due to global climatic changes.

Scientists approach the empirical world in many different ways. Qualitative research, like quantitative research, has its own set of assumptions, techniques, and analytical tools that are used to describe and interpret social reality, social problems and their solutions. This course is designed to introduce the qualitative research tradition and ways for conducting this kind of research.

The main objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of positive and negative impacts of tourism, tourism trends and the responsibility of different stakeholders in developing tourism sustainable.  
Basic policies, principles and indicators will be used to make a brief assessment of potentials and barriers regarding sustainable tourism development in Sigri, a small fishing village on the island of Lesvos presently untouched by mass tourism. Special attention will be given the infrastructural barriers to tourism growth imposed by limitations in waste management, energy supply, water supply, and wastewater treatment.
The students will be assigned make their own observations and interviews, review the present situation, and research  economically viable small scale solutions to prevent environmental degradation, in order to present their findings orally and in a short paper.

The goal set for the participants of this course is to learn a new way of looking at the world, in particular at social systems and their transitions, and to learn a strategy for creating social policy that can make a difference. This second term, for MS level students, will be presented in a seminar format, with participants discussing the application of the principles learned in the first term to the creation of action plans for the transformation of the environmental systems they described in their winter term projects.

In this introductory course, students will gain insight into the scientific method, and basic concepts and laws in ecology, including main ecological theories and biogeochemical cycles. The course will equip students in understanding how ecological principles must be considered in managing the environment.