The online course is designed for professionals active in water resources management, environmental conservation and/or research. Typically they will belong to government institutions such as ministries of water affairs, environmental affairs, agriculture or river basin organisations.
Such people will be in a position to introduce and promote the concept of Environmental Flows in water policy, planning and management. Others will be employed in research institutions, or in engineering or environmental consultancies.
This online course introduces the concept of environmental flows and explains why maintaining environmental flows is needed for human and ecosystem well-being. It presents the methods to assess environmental flows, including their advantages and limitations. The course also covers how environmental flows can be included at project level or when planning land use and resource development at a regional scale.
Course content
During the online course the following subjects will be discussed:
1. Fundamental concepts (2 weeks)
2. Situation analysis (2 weeks)
3. Science of Environmental Flows (2 weeks)
4. Assessment Methodologies (4 weeks)
5. Implementation (2 weeks)
6. Case studies – Lessons learnt (1 week)
7. Group project (3 weeks)
Each subject ends with a tutor or discussion assignment for which participants have to use their newly acquired knowledge and interact with the teacher and the other participants using the discussion platform of the Moodle platform.
The final mark for the course is based on individual assignments, contribution to discussions and the final group project. Upon successful completion of the course, participants will receive a Course Certificate issued by IHE Delft.
Upon completion, the participant should be able to: