BSc minor Urban Environmental Management (WUUEM)

Now that more than half of the world population is living in urban centers, securing a safe and healthy urban environment is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, cities are major nods in the global networks of consumption and production responsible for utilizing of biggest shares of the world's fossil and natural resources.

Continue to an overview of the courses in this minor

The BSc minor introduces the core disciplines (Technology, Policy and Management, Land Use Planning) and issues of Urban Environmental Management to BSc students of various disciplines from within and outside Wageningen University. The BSc minor covers the management of environmental flows like water, waste and energy in and between cities and industries; the technologies and infrastructures accommodating these flows; the stakeholders using, regulating and managing them; and urban spatial planning.


The BSc minor introduces technological principles and its social implications, policy options, business and planning approaches for managing the urban environment. Successful completion of the BSc minor would offer BSc students other than Environmental Sciences access to the Masters programme Urban Environmental Management or the MSc program Metropolitan Analysis Design and Engineering at the Advanced Metropolitan Solutions Institute in Amsterdam. This BSc minor is a programme minor.

Learning Outcomes

After successful completion of this minor students are expected to be able to:

  • understand and explain the key concepts in the field of entrepreneurship; sustainability transitions, urban planning and design, urban environmental technology;
  • describe and motivate the possible contribution of environmental technology, urban planning, policy and historical insights to urban sustainable development;
  • develop feasible policy, management and technology options with regard to urban environmental management on the basis of selected theories, concepts and tools;
  • apply methods, tools and indicators for sustainability assessment in the context of urban infrastructures and urban planning;

Depending on RO choice:

  • analyse the dynamics of industrialized societies, particularly concerning the transitions in urban environmental infrastructures (in particular energy and water);
  • write a scientific essay on an urban environmental topic;

Or

  • perform basic calculations (e.g. mass and energy balances, reactors size, etc.) in order to describe and evaluate resource flows and technologies
  • understand and evaluate the qualitative and quantitative aspects of resource flows (i.e. energy, water, materials) in an urban system;

Target group

This minor is of interest for WU-students of the BSc programmes:

  • BIN International Development Studies
  • BIL International Land and Water Management
  • BAT Biosystems Engineering
  • BBC Management and Consumer Studies
  • BGM Health and Society
  • BLP Landscape Architecture and Planning
  • BBW Soil, Water, Atmosphere
  • BEB Economics and Governance

Also for non-WU students of BSc programmes like Environmental Sciences, Geography or Planning.

Overlapping courses or content

BMW Environmental Sciences

Language

English

Semester

First semester (period 1, 2 and 3)

Programme or thematic

Programme minor