Soils and Global Change (Erasmus Mundus) Ghent University

Overview

The Soils and Global Change (IMSOGLO) programme from Ghent University has been granted the EU’s prestigious Erasmus Mundus label. It is offered jointly by Ghent University (Belgium), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Austria), University of Göttingen (Germany), and Aarhus University (Denmark).

GLOBAL CHANGE AFFECTS THE FUTURE CAPACITY OF SOIL

Increasing population pressure, industrialisation and intensive land use are causing depletion of natural resources and are limiting the performance of land with respect to functions such as biomass production, carbon sequestration and water purification. The cumulative effects of climate change and the abovementioned aspects of global change influence the capacity of soils to regenerate and may even cause soil degradation.

The future capacity of soils to support (human) life is at stake, as recognised by national and international organisations and governmental bodies, such as the EU. Programmes have been developed to protect the environment and to increase ecosystem resilience. Numerous directives have been developed and implemented that build on scientific knowledge about soil response to external pressures.

This scientific knowledge is available in European universities, but rather dispersed due to the specialisation and size of the relevant research groups. In the past this has made it difficult for students to follow a focused curriculum on soils and global change at any individual university.

The alarming effects of global change on soils observed throughout the world emphasize the need to train more personnel worldwide to understand how soils react to global change and to develop prevention and remediation strategies and increase soil resilience. The participating universities in IMSOGLO are very well equipped to give effective and targeted training on soil interactions with global change to an international audience of students.

CAREERS

With an International Master of Science in Soils and Global Change you will be trained in soil management in the context of global change with either an agro-ecosystem focus or an integrated land management focus. You will gain extensive knowledge about what it takes to save our soils from degradation, how to make soils resilient to climate change, and how to make soils healthy again.

You will be equipped to follow a variety of career paths as a top-level researcher, an academic, or a policymaker. This means that there are job opportunities in regional environment agencies, municipal

nature conservation offices, agricultural advisory services, educational institutions, NGOs concerned with nature and the environment, consulting engineering companies, and EU institutions, ministries and other public authorities.

Research is also an obvious career path. Students can apply for admission to the university’s PhD programme following completion of the thesis.