ESS_1.7 Ecological Economics

Objectives

Upon completion of the module, students have an understanding of the relevance, application and limitations of economic approaches in in decision making for environmental and nature conservation policies. Students can independently orally present and write on the covered topics.

Content

The module covers the fundamentals of economic principles in their application to environmental and resource problems. It includes fundamentals in ecological economics such as the concept of sustainability and traditional and alternative approaches to welfare measurement. The module provides an introduction to the identification of ecosystem services and their integration into reporting and accounting systems (e.g., Ecosystem accounting at project, regional or state level, national or business accounting)

Structure of the course

• Lectures, mostly on Tuesday morning
• Exercise on ecosystem services provided by urban trees in Zittau: learning to apply the iTree Eco tool
• Research seminar

Block seminar with presentations of the i-Tree report