Integrated Land Use Systems (ILUS)

Integrated Land Use Systems (29 April – 17 May 2024)

Contemporary consumption patterns, climate change and other global trends are placing increasing pressure on agricultural and forestry production in many parts of the world. The classic intensification approach to increase food and biomass yields by using genetically altered cultivars, mechanization and automatization, and by applying pesticides and fertilizer has led to undesirable results. Negative environmental and social outcomes include soil degradation, eutrophication, decline in freshwater availability, loss of biodiversity, as well as land-use conflicts, loss of employment, and rural-urban migration.

Integrated Land Use Systems (ILUS), which combine different types of land use practices are advocated as alternative land use options to overcome the environmental and social ailments listed above. Many examples can be provided for integrated and diversified land use resulting in the provision of a wider range of ecosystem services, a lower vulnerability to the risks of market volatilities, weather calamities and climate change. Despite this recognition, however, ILUS are still poorly known and understood, and not equally promoted as agricultural intensification, for instance, by extension services.

By joining the course Integrated Land Use Systems you will learn about cases of ILUS from different corners of the world. You will learn to understand how different ILUS have developed, what are their ecological, economic, social and cultural strengths and vulnerabilities, and how ILUS constitute options to address contemporary development, agricultural pollution, and climate change challenges.

Course mode

The first week of the course is online with online live lectures. The second and third week are in presence in Freiburg. In this week lectures will extent the concepts of ILUS at the hand of case studies and the participants will work on their own cases.

The course can also be attended only online. Online participants can participate in the lectures and discussions, but not in the group work.

Course aim:

The participants understand and apply the Integrated Land Use System concept and related scientific knowledge.

Participants will familiarize themselves with the ILUS concept and a diversity of cases of integrated land use practices currently in use across the globe, as well as their trends and possible future directions. Participants will become acquainted with up-to-date ILUS related expert knowledge, and they will be trained in competencies to analyse the ecological, social and economic features of ILUS, how those features interact, and how these interactions shape ILUS outcomes.

Participants will be organized in small groups and select a case for in-depth analysis. The cases will be analysed considering different geographical regions, economic and sociocultural settings and production objectives.

Excursions will be organized to the surroundings of Freiburg to provide practical insights about the relevance, potentials and challenges related to the application of ILUS. Based on this input, the participants will develop their group work, the latter of which will be presented and discussed towards the end of the module.e.

After completing the course students can:

•  Describe and classify different types of ILUS

•  Analyse the performance and potential of ILUS with respect to environmental, economic and sociocultural considerations

•  Understand prevalent policies and their interactions with economic and sociocultural conditions

•  Relate ILUS to major societal challenges, including food security, economic growth, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation

•  Critically reflect on the implications of ILUS for sustainable land use and rural livelihoods

   

Target Group:

The module is designed for international graduate students, consultants and land use professionals, as well as for young scientists working in the field of forestry, agricultural, and environmental sciences, geography, rural development, land use planning, landscape ecology and other related fields of natural resource management. The programme is open for applications from all countries.

Further informaion

• Freiburg, “the green city” is a traditional but at the same time also a very young and dynamic university city. It is located close to the black forest, France and Switzerland and is considered to be one of the most attractive cities in Germany – especially in summer.

• Many sustainability initiatives originated in Freiburg, and it is one of the European centres of renewable energy development and sustainability research.

• The Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg was founded in 1457 and is one of the oldest universities in Germany. Students can choose from over 150 programmes at 11 faculties. At present, 25,000 students are enrolled.

More information and application:

Download the application form here.

Download our flyer here.

The class of 2019 has compiled a joint report on their lessons learnt in the course on Integrated Land Use Systems that can be downloaded here (PDF).

Contact:

Universität Freiburg

Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources

Chair of Silviculture

Dr. Joachim Schmerbeck

Mr. Gustav Michels

Tennenbacherstr. 4, 79106 Freiburg

ilus@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de