Programme aims

5900 - Environmental Assessment and Management

The Second-cycle degree/Two-year master in Environmental Assessment and Management, in class LM-75, aims to train graduates who can work as Environmental Analysts, Environmental Offices, Environmental Assessors and Environmental Researchers.
The Second-cycle degree/Two-year master provides in-depth knowledge of the most innovative and interdisciplinary methodologies in thefield of research, assessment, control, environmental management and decision-making support in environmental matters.
The Second-cycle degree/Two-year master offers a conventional and an international programme which, one focusing on the environment as a whole and the other on the water and coastal environment,enabling students to gain specific competences and in-depth knowledge of the problems linked to environmental analysis and management.

In the first year, both courses require students to tackle basic and cross-cutting topics relating to applied physiology, applied chemistry, environmental hydrology, as well as course units aiming to develop environmental management and monitoring methods. In particular, the subjects in the international programme focus more closely on the coastal and water ecosystem. For both courses, the first year includes a mandatory interdisciplinary laboratory to apply the competences acquired in the field. During the second year, students acquire additional complementary competences, and will perform a research project for the dissertation. The students attending both the conventional and the international programme can undertake work for their dissertation also outside the university. This is encouraged by the course of study in the case of interested students and facilitated through agreements already in place or to be defined. The dissertation, carried out in a company or public research centre in Italy or abroad, also at foreign universities, is produced under the responsibility of a contact professor at the host facility and a lecturer from the degree programme. Any internship carried out for the preparation of the dissertation is a fundamental opportunity for specialisation as well as for future employment, both in the scientific field and in the management of environmental resources and private industry. Only for the conventional programme, students are expected to acquire level B2 in the English language. The Second-cycle degree/Two-year master in Environmental Assessment and Management therefore offers a multidisciplinary, dynamic and integrated approach, aiming specifically at the study/analysis, conservation, management and safeguarding of the environment.

The study programme covers two main thematic macro-areas:
1) Environmental analysis,
2) Environmental management.
These areas aim to train advanced specialist andvocational knowledge and competences according to the expected learning outcomes,as follows:

1) ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS – In this thematic area, the programme aims to provide specialist technical and scientific knowledge and competences in the fundamental subjects of the class which are indispensable in the field of environmental analysis. The student, in fact, in the planned training pathway learns through lectures, practical work in the field and in the laboratory focusing on the assessment methods of environmental quality, environmental risks and impacts caused by human activities; the methods of processing complex data, problems linked to the sustainable use of resources; modern instrumental techniques for critically assessing quality parameters; the methods for integrating multidisciplinary knowledge of the environment as a whole and the water and coastal environment; the various international directives.The measurement of environmental parameters must be supported by familiarity with the most advanced techniques for processing complex matrices (industrial, food, biological or environmental), and the knowledge of geographical information systems and data processing programmes.

2) ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT – In this thematic area, the programme aims to provide specialist technical and scientific knowledge and competences in the fundamental subjects of the class which are indispensable inthe field of environmental management. The student, in fact, in the planned training pathway learns through lectures, practical work in the field and in the laboratory focusing on the methods for identifying environmental risks and impacts produced by human activities; the planning and decision-making methods for managing the environment as a whole and the water and coastal environment; the methods for assessing predictive scenarios, the criteria for defining political and managerial strategies linked to the environment; the methods for conducting investigations, studies and plans for water and marine-coastal environments, also in an international context. This is achieved through studies in the fields of law, economics, impact assessment, the use of physical and economic indicators, knowledge of energy resources and environmental risk factors, and lifelong learning in the field.