Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1 Editorial - Environmental Challenges
and Management of Natural Resources
Michael Schmidt, Vincent Onyango and Dmytro Palekhov
Department of Environmental Planning, Brandenburg University of Technology
(BTU), Cottbus, Germany
1.1 Introduction
Today, we live in a world in which the issues of environmental protection and sus-
tainable management of natural resources are of significant concern. Globally,
several challenges of various severities to sustainable environmental and natural
resources management have been reported (EIA 2008; IPCC 2007; FAO 2006;
MEA 2005; WCED 1987). These include problems significantly affecting land,
atmosphere, water, and biodiversity, at various spatial and temporal scales. These
challenges take several forms e.g. pollution, degradation, decreasing biodiversity
and degraded ecosystem services (MEA 2005; IPPC 2007; Taylor and Buttel
1992). Hence, the world's societies are facing the crucial task of developing cor-
rective, adaptive and coping mechanisms (Clini et al. 2008; Clark and Noin 1998).
Policy-makers and practitioners have aimed at transforming these problems into
manageable challenges (Pepper 1996). This is aptly exemplified by current efforts
to meet the challenges posed by climate change and global warming, and the po-
tential attendant impacts (Ranganathan et al. 2008; FAO 2006). Other efforts can
be found in the conventions and norms, policies, programmes and projects, at vari-
ous levels of governance (Albrecht et al. 2007; Hendricks and Guruswamy 1997).
Moreover, to facilitate environmental conservation and sustainable develop-
ment, various study programmes have been introduced. Subsequently, studies in
environmental assessments, impacts and integrated planning provide a significant
linkage between human socio-economic interactions and the natural environment.
Whether these programmes constitute an emerging or a fully-fledged field of
study and management science can be debated. The study programme Environ-
mental Resources Management (ERM) was started at the Brandenburg University
of Technology (BTU), Cottbus, Germany in 1998. The objective was to produce
interdisciplinary professionals versed in the science, practice and management of
environmental and natural resources (
www.tu-cottbus.de/environmen
t). Similar
study programmes, going under various names, today constitute a fully-fledged
field of study and management science, offered at many universities worldwide. It
