Sustainable Land Management (Urban Land Engineering )

Overview

Key facts

Sustainable land and groundwater management and urban land problems and engineering are important global and current environmental issues. Ghent University's Sustainable Land Management (Urban Land Engineering ) refers to practices and technologies that aim at integrating the management of land, water and other environmental resources to meet human needs while ensuring the long-term sustainability of ecosystem services and livelihoods. 

Worldwide, population pressures and severe degradation, pollution and desertification problems are threatening this – for several countries relatively scarce – natural resource, and cause competition between agricultural or industrial purposes, urban planning and nature conservation.

To guarantee a proper use and management of this basic commodity for a nation, well trained specialists with a thorough knowledge of the properties and characteristics of this natural resource, and a solid insight in factors and measures that may alter its actual state and value are warranted and call for a high standard scientific and practical education.

Labour Market

There is a great demand for experts in physical land resources to address the many challenges ahead of us, particularly resulting from the lack of similar programmes worldwide. Implementation of various environmental and climate change related directives and addressing the sustainable development goals, demands well-trained personnel in physical land resources, both in the Global North and South. The great majority of alumni are very satisfied with the programme and with the opportunities it created for their current jobs.