Postgraduate programmes on environmental water resources engineering and management in Greek universities

Abstract

The management of complex water problems is nowadays being practised through new ways and approaches. Therefore, water engineers, planners and managers should be appropriately educated through modern undergraduate curricula and by well-designed postgraduate specialisation programmes. Within this framework, a study of the specific characteristics of an ensemble of 14 postgraduate programmes in various fields of environmental water resources engineering and management, offered by Greek universities, is presented. Detailed information and data regarding the formats, structures, educational processes and curricula contents of these programmes are analysed and critically discussed. Similarities and differences among them are depicted and synthesised, in order to reveal individual as well as collective qualities and deficiencies in relation with the overall current needs for engineering postgraduate specialisation in water-related issues.

Keywords:

• engineering education
• postgraduate studies
• water resources
• environmental engineering
• Greek universities

Additional information

About the authors

Pericles Latinopoulos is a professor of Water Resources Management at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, where he directs the postgraduate programme ‘Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development’. In the period 2009–2011, he served as President of the Greek Universities Laboratories Network HYDROMEDON. His current research interests are in water resources management, environmental economics and engineering education.

Panagiotis Angelidis is an assistant professor of Environmental Hydraulics at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. His main research activities are in the areas of environmental hydraulics, with emphasis on water pollution in large scale flows, and of flood simulation and management. He has participated in many research programmes as a key researcher.