Master in Environmental Management of Mountain Areas

The sustainable development of mountain regions has to consider economic, ecological and social aspects. Currently, in particular the environments of the European Alps are facing ecological (e.g. climate change, glacier retreat, hydrological changes) as well as land-use changes (e.g. urbanization, abandonment of mountain agriculture), the latter often driven by socio-economic reasons. While human activities in the mountain areas should be economically viable and broaden opportunities for local communities in terms of profit and jobs, it also has to match the goal of contributing to improving the degree of conservation and renewal of biotic and abiotic resources at the ecosystem level, which ultimately represent, over time, the essential ingredients of sustainable management. Social changes including immigration from countries outside Europe as well as ageing of resident populations are also changing the social structure of the society in mountain areas. Additionally, there is an increasing need for expanding the production of energy from renewable sources (e.g. wood biomass, biogas, and hydropower). 

There is a common understanding that environmental problems should be solved by an international and interdisciplinary cooperation. Thus, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz, Northern Italy) and the University of Innsbruck (Austria), both located in the Alps, have developed an international Master program (Italian class: laurea magistrale, LM 73) which focuses on sustainable landscape development as well as ecosystem and land-use management in mountain regions. The cooperation between these universities combines in an integrative way the ecological as well as the socio-economic perspective of ecology and management of mountain landscapes. Additionally, it contributes to an intensification of cooperation between Italy and Austria on the university level.

Career opportunities

The interdisciplinary and research-oriented master programme opens up a wide range of occupational opportunities for graduates all over the world, in particular environmental assessment, monitoring and management of protected areas, project planning and Eco-certification in the fields of agriculture and forestry, analysis and natural hazard assessment of hydrogeological origin, and elaboration of development plans of agricultural mountain areas, as well as various scientific careers.