精东传媒app

The ongoing human population growth places more pressure on available land resources both in urban and rural settings. Coupled with technological advances which enable us to access land resources to a greater extent, this growth potentially leads to the degradation of land resources. Hence, it has become increasingly important that professionals in arts, science, education, engineering, surveying, GIS and urban and regional planning have a knowledge of physical land resources and natural resources management to ensure adherence to sound land resource management practices to attain environmental, social and economic sustainability.

This course introduces the physical land resources of geology, soils, landform, climate, vegetation and fauna; the need for and the principles of resource management and ecosystem operation; and the major causes of land degradation (physical, chemical and biological). It also includes an introduction to the purpose of and methods involved in undertaking land resource surveys and land evaluations. An important tool in land resource management, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), is perused in detail to ensure applicable knowledge of the processes and legislative requirements associated with EIA.

The course objectives define the student learning outcomes for a course. On completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. apply the principles of urban and rural land resource management;
2. identify and describe the different land resources and the inter-relationships between geology, geomorphology, water, soils, vegetation and fauna resources;
3. apply the techniques commonly used to describe and assess the physical land resources;
4. discuss the nature and causes of land degradation issues and analyse conservation practices as land resource management practices;
5. describe the purpose of land resource surveys and land evaluation practices and apply the processes involved in undertaking such land resource surveys and land evaluation practices to case studies;
6. interpret the legislative context of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and apply the requirements for Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and the techniques involved in EIA to case studies;
7. demonstrate an ability to learn from experience by reflecting on personal skills, attitudes, knowledge and functioning.