We are pleased to announce that the ‘Sustainability & Water’ MOOC, developed by INTENSE consortium, has been launched!
This massive open online course (MOOC), available on the project Chamilo platform http://mooc.intense.network/, will guide you through the state of the art concept, approaches and tools used in sustainable water management. Each of its 15 topics represents an independent learning unit that is not depending from other topics. However all together the MOOC topics build up a progression for getting good insights into the overall theme. Our primary target audiences are learners with some background in and understanding of environmental and Earth sciences, and while we do not expect that after having completed all the lectures you will become an expert in the field, we however expect that you will be well prepared to start in-depth studies of water resource management, and will understand what specific topics and what kind of literature would better fit your specific interests. The MOOC aims at the following specific learning outcomes:
- Understanding of the scope and objectives of sustainable water management and governance;
- Understanding policy instruments used in the EU, partner countries and internationally in order to ensure sustainable water use;
- Acquiring insights into various water-related sectoral challenges and best practices and management tools for tackling them;
- Understanding properties of the various types of aquatic ecosystems, their specific vulnerabilities and management measures for their sustainable use.
The MOOC has been prepared by a multinational team representing academic institutions in Austria, Mongolia, Ukraine and Vietnam, and therefore most of the learning contents are based on these geographical contexts. The coordinating co-authors of the MOOC are Prof. Hans-Peter Nachtnebel of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria, and Prof. Anatolii Polovyi of Odessa State Environmental University in Odessa, Ukraine.