This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Global Change

Code: 42404 ECTS Credits: 9
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
4313784 Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability OT 0

Contact

Name:
Jordi Cristobal Rosselló
Email:
jordi.cristobal@uab.cat

Teachers

Patrizia Ziveri
Johannes Langemeyer
Miquel Ninyerola Casals

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

Students should preferably hold an undergraduate degree with relevance to environmental sciences, biology, geography, Earth and marine sciences or ecology, although students with a background in social and political sciences are also welcome and should be able to follow the course provided, they are acquainted with basic principles of Earth and physical sciences.

A reasonable level of English speaking and writing skills are recommended to follow the course.

 


Objectives and Contextualisation

The understanding of the biological, physical, and social processes related to Global Change, and their interaction, are some of the main current challenges, not only because of its complexity, but also due to the necessity of finding solutions to the negative impacts caused by such changes.

The course covers many of the diverse types of impacts related to Global Change on different spatial and temporal scales, mainly focused on different types of ecosystems (terrestrial and marine) as well as its effects on society, and the social responses.

The main objectives of the course are summarized below:

  • to identify different types of impacts related with global change
  • to explore a wide variety of spatial and temporal scales of global changes
  • to consider other driving forces that interact with global change processes
  • to analyze global change manifestations from both terrestrial and marine systems such as biodiversity loss, perturbation of the global carbon cycle, ecosystem degradation, land use.
  • to identify different approaches to global change through the analysis of protected areas (biosphere reserves, marine protected areas, marine restoration, rural landscapes, etc.)

Competences

  • Analyse how the Earth functions on a global scale in order to understand and interpret environmental changes on the global and local scales.
  • Communicate and justify conclusions clearly and unambiguously to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Communicate orally and in writing in English.
  • Continue the learning process, to a large extent autonomously.
  • Seek out information in the scientific literature using appropriate channels, and use this information to formulate and contextualise research in environmental sciences.
  • Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  • Work in an international, multidisciplinary context.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Communicate and justify conclusions clearly and unambiguously to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  2. Communicate orally and in writing in English.
  3. Continue the learning process, to a large extent autonomously.
  4. Know the ways in which global change shows itself in different ecosystems.
  5. Seek out information in the scientific literature using appropriate channels, and use this information to formulate and contextualise research in environmental sciences.
  6. Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
  7. Work in an international, multidisciplinary context.

Content

The course is organized as follows:

Sub-Module 1: Terrestrial Global Change

  1. Introduction to the interdisciplinary approach on Global Change.
  2. Responding Locally to Global and Globalizing Changes: land use/cover change.
  3. Agriculture and Global Change.
  4. Acceleration of the hydrological cycle under global warming.
  5. Forest Management as a key factor of global change. Sustainable forest management and its revalorization. 
  6. Forest health.
  7. Environment and human health.
  8. The Conceptual Framework of (Urban) Ecosystem Services and Green Infrastructure.
  9. Assessing (Urban) Ecosystem Services: Methodological Approaches. 
  10. Oral presentations. 

Sub-Module 2: Marine Global Change

  1. Introduction to ocean, climate, and global change. The perturbation of the carbon cycle and the consequences on the marine ecosystems and biogeochemistry
  2. Cumulative pressures on the marine system focusing on marine pollution, marine litter and micro-plastics 
  3. Considering different temporal scales of global changes from marine historical ecology and paleo-reconstructions. Discussing the new trend in blue economy focusing on blue carbon. Marine Protected Areas, ocean conservation and restoration.
  4. Oral presentations 

Sub-Module 3: Field trips

- New trends in Mediterranean landscapes conservation (Montseny Natural Park and Biosphere Reserve). Pending: there might be another short field trip.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures 42 1.68 2, 4, 5, 7
Theory lessons in fieldwork 6 0.24 3, 4, 7
Type: Supervised      
Fieldwork 6 0.24 4, 6
Tutorship 34 1.36 1, 5, 6
Type: Autonomous      
Oral presentation training 40 1.6 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Reading articles, books and studying for each of the given lectures and the final exam 91 3.64 1, 3, 4, 5, 6

Teaching and discussions will occur during lectures, guided by readings assigned in advance by individual instructors.

 The course also includes fieldwork to explore local-scale manifestations of Global Change impacts.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Class assignments 20% 0 0 3, 4, 7
Final Exam 50% 3 0.12 1, 2, 6
Two oral presentations 30% 3 0.12 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The final mark will be the weighted average of the following assessments:

Type

Grade percentage (%)

Comments

Oral presentations

30

Two oral presentations (15% each one) covering Terrestrial and Marine Global Change

Class assignments

20

One class assignment covering Terrestrial Globa Change

Final test

50

3-hour test covering most aspects of the course but Forest Health. In this case a take-home test will be provided.

 

If a student fails to reach 40% of each one of the assessment types (12%, 8% and 20% for oral presentations, class assignments and final test, respectively) the student will have to repeat the test or the assignment to be able to pass the subject (in this case the student will be contacted to schedule another assignment submission or test date). Moreover, the student must have 50% of the final grade to be able to pass the subject.

IMPORTANT:

  • In the final exam the students will have limited space to answer each of these questions and will have to prove that they have understood, and master key concepts and ideas introduced during the course.
  • A mandatory field trip to the Montseny Natural Park and Biosphere Reserve to explain the local effects of Global Change in a Mediterranean landscape will be carried out. You will need to bring adequate clothing.
  • Their assistance and participation in class will be considered for grading the students.

IRREGULARITIES BY THE STUDENT, COPYING AND PLAGIARISM

 Assessment activities qualified in this way and by this procedure will not be recoverable. If it is necessary to pass any of these assessment activities to pass the subject, this subject will be suspended directly, with no opportunity to recover it in the same course. These irregularities include, among others: 

  • total or partial copy of a practice, report, or any other assessment activity;
  • allow the copying of any assessment to other students;
  • present group work not done entirely by group members;
  • present as own materials prepared by a third party, even if they are translations or adaptations, and in general works with non-original and exclusive elements of the student;
  • have communication devices (such as mobile phones, smart watches, etc.) accessible during individual theoretical-practical assessment tests (exams).

 EVALUATION OF REPEATER STUDENTS

 In the case of repeater students, it will not be possible to keep the previous grades for the course's practices. Without prejudice to other disciplinary measures that are deemed appropriate, and in accordance with current academic regulations, irregularities committed by a student that may lead to a variation of the grade will be graded with a zero (0).


Bibliography

Terrestrial Global Change

 

-Anthony MA, Crowther TW, van der Linde S et al. 2022. Forest tree growth is linked to mycorrhizal fungal composition and function across Europe. ISME Journal 16.

-Department of Sustainability and Enviornment. 2004. Vegetation Quality Assessment Manual–Guidelines for applying the habitat hectares scoring method. Version 1.3. Victorian Government. Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne.

-Grantham HS, Duncan A, Evans TD et al. 2020. Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity. Nature Communications 11: 5978.

-Hengl et al. 2018. Global mapping of potential natural vegetation: an assessment of machine learning algorithms for estimating land potential. PeerJ 6:e5457.

-Jaworek-Jakubska J, Filipiak M, Napierała-Filipiak A. 2020. Understanding of Forest Cover Dynamics in Traditional Landscapes: Mapping Trajectories of Changes in Mountain Territories (1824–2016), on the Example of Jeleniogórska Basin, Poland. Forests 11:867.

-Peñuelas J, Germain J, Álvarez E, Aparicio E, Arús P, Basnou C, Blanché C, Bonada N, Canals P, Capodiferro M, et al. 2021. Impacts of Use and Abuse of Nature in Catalonia with Proposals for Sustainable Management. Land 10(2):144.

-Running SW, Nemani RR, Heinsch FA, Zhao M, Reeves M, Hashimoto H. 2004. A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production. BioScience 54:6.

-Sandker M, Finegold Y, D'Annunzio R, Lindquist E. 2017. Global deforestation patterns: comparing recent and past forest loss processes through aspatially explicit analysis. International Forestry Review 19:3.

-Stellmes M, Röder A, Udelhoven T, Hill J. 2013. Mapping syndromes of land change in Spain with remote sensing time series, demographic and climatic data. Land Use Policy 30.

-Zhu Z, Piao S, Myneni R et al. 2016.Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nature Climate Change 6.

Marine Global Change


Software

Specific GIS software might be used to complete the course: ArcGIS Pro, MiraMon or QGIS. All of them are freely available for SAES students.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TEm) Theory (master) 1 English first semester afternoon