The next PhD student course on “Monitoring and environmental assessment” will start in March. The objective of the course is to provide the students with a basic understanding of environmental assessments and how to design programs for monitoring forest damage, the incidence of damaging agents and the risk of damage. Registration for this course is now closed.
The course combines theoretical lectures, practical demonstrations of monitoring and students will critically evaluate the monitoring methods they use in their respective projects.
The course starts with an introduction to the topic online followed by a weekly, digital lectures and literature discussion, providing the students with knowledge on basic concepts and their application to monitoring in management. During the on-site week, lectures on monitoring and sampling theory will be combined with lectures on specific methods. Theory will be combined with sampling exercises in the field and students will evaluate methods applied in their own doctoral projects.
After completing the course you will be able to: Have a general understanding of environmental assessment. Understand basic concepts in setting up monitoring programs, including:
- Requirements based on the management goals
- Basic monitoring methods and sampling designs
- The concepts of accuracy, precision and statistical power
- Spatial and temporal resolution
- Uncertainty, random vs. systematic variation
- Procedures for quality assurance and quality control
Have basic knowledge of specific monitoring methods, including their potential use for monitoring incidence of damage, damaging agents of different kinds, and damage risks:
Field surveying, Remote sensing, Environmental DNA, Camera traps, Spore and insect trapping, Tracking of ungulates and many more...
The course is 3.5 credits.
The course is free (ie no course fee). However, students outside SLU need to pay for their own costs during the on-site week (travel, accommodation and food).
SAVE THE DATES!
On-site week will be hold in Lycksele, Västerbotten 13-17 May
The Time for online lectures and discussions will be 8:30-10:00 and the preliminary dates are here:
- Friday, 8 March Information needs and overview of monitoring methods, Göran Ståhl (link to first article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-011-2130-7 )
- Thursday, 14 March Inventory and sampling theory, Anton Grafström
- Friday, 22 March Inventory and sampling theory, Anton Grafström
- Friday, 5 April Field inventories, with examples from the Swedish National Forest Inventory, Göran Ståhl
- Friday, 12 April Remote Sensing, Jonas Bohlin
- Friday, 19 April e-DNA, Göran Spong
- Friday, 26 April Swedish Forest Agency: Monitoring of forest damage, The Forest Agency
- Friday, 3 May Monitoring of Biodiversity, Anne-Maarit Hekkala
