Environmental Studies

After an introduction to the major threats to global biodiversity, student explore a series of broad conservation themes. The first part of the course focuses on the species level, including: some of the particular threats faced, why species become rare and endangered, what measures can be taken to halt or reverse population declines, and how populations of threatened species can be restored. Students consider the contribution of modern molecular genetics to clarifying and addressing various conservation issues. Students also look at how people and wildlife interact, both positively and negatively, and how emergent conflicts can be resolved. The second part of the course adopts a habitat and ecosystem focus. Students work up from a consideration of specific habitats and their management to a landscape approach, including methods for restoring damaged habitats and ecosystems. Finally, students explore the national, European, and international system of conservation designations and their associated legal frameworks.

This course presents the main geological characteristics of marine environments (excluding the water column). It examines the dynamics of the various structural entities that make up oceanic domains—mid‑ocean ridges, subduction zones, abyssal plains, continental margins, oceanic plateaus, and islands—and the sedimentary processes that occur within them. These elements are situated within the broader framework of lithospheric plate dynamics. The course combines classroom lectures, guided practical sessions involving the analysis of oceanographic data, and fieldwork. In addition, a guest lecture addresses current global issues affecting marine domains at the international scale.

This course covers issues involved in global environmental changes and introduces system thinking, which is used in natural and social sciences. The course covers the following topics: 

1: Global Change: Overview
2: System Diagram
3: Daisyworld
4: Global Energy Balance
5: The Atmospheric Circulation System
6: The Circulation of the Oceans
7: The Carbon Cycle
8: Long-Term Climate Regulation
9: Faint Young Sun Paradox, Early Earth
10: Short-Term Climate Variability
11: Global Warming and An Inconvenient Truth
12: Kepler and Milankovitch
13: Ozone Depletion

This course focuses on disaster risk as the key element of environmental risk, elaborating with case studies on different innovation examples in the field of housing, health, water, education and disaster recovery. It features examples from developing countries in Asia. 

Building on concepts such as ecosystem structure, biogeochemical cycles, and the principles of ecological succession, this course further clarifies, through concrete examples, the interactions between the functioning of natural environments and their development and use by humans. Using case studies, primarily focused on hydrosystems, the course addresses the functioning of water‑related environments and the management challenges they present. Special attention is given to how ecological processes (matter cycling, species interactions, and habitat evolution) shape these environments over time. Lacustrine systems, rivers, and wetlands—ecosystems particularly sensitive to climate disturbances—are emphasized. These case studies may be complemented by field-based investigations

This course is concerned with how people, governments, organizations, and businesses understand environmental problems, negotiate interests, create policies, and implement solutions. It blends environmental studies, political science, political theory, law, social psychology, and economics. Its central aim is to analyze the structures and mechanics of power, knowledge, solidarity, cooperation, disagreement, and conflict as they are operate in different societies and at different scales of social organization. 

Its focus is on Italian environmental politics, which provides a complex case study given the many urgent issues Italy has to confront (including accelerating climate change, energy dependence, new challenges to food and urban systems, pollution, and rapid ecosystemic transformation and landscape degradation), its peculiarities (including its morphology, its centrality in the Mediterranean region, the constant entanglements between natural and cultural heritage on its territory, and the long shadow of criminal activities profiting at the expense of localities), its pugnacious, multilayered politics and highly bureaucratized policy-making, high levels of internal socio-economic and cultural diversity, and its evolving international relations.   

The course asks questions like: who and what causes environmental problems, and how? Who is affected? Who decides what should be done, in whose name, and with what authority? What power do different actors have? What values guide environmental policy? How do national and local environmental policy-makers interact with regional and international institutions?

Based on the study of selected marine ecosystems, this course analyzes the environmental forcing variables and constraints that shape them, in order to explain the different factors structuring biological communities and to situate biology within the broader field of oceanography. A field course at a marine station illustrates several of these concepts, such as adaptations to aquatic life and the relationship between spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity. The field component includes embarkation aboard Planula 4, an INSU–CNRS research vessel (FOF).

This course introduces the issues surrounding water in terms of management, sustainable development, and resource protection. Lectures, tutorials, and practical work are taught in various fields: hydrology, hydrogeology, mass transfer, and drilling. The water cycle is analyzed in detail through its different processes and associated mechanisms, with the goal of establishing hydrological and material budgets for the study of watersheds. A case‑study project is carried out during the semester, allowing students to put theory into practice and to develop an initial methodological and scientific approach in preparation for a future professional or research career. In hydrogeology, the basic principles are taught regarding flows, aquifers, and associated groundwater bodies.

This course introduces the quantitative treatment of marine and oceanographic data, with a focus on selecting, implementing, and interpreting numerical analyses suited to common oceanographic sampling strategies and experimental designs. It also covers the essential principles and techniques of signal processing as applied to marine environmental datasets, enabling them to analyze, filter, and interpret complex oceanographic signals.

The course introduces various types of chemical contaminants and their adverse effects on animals, humans and ecosystems, and environmental management strategies. It provides an overview of ecotoxicology principles, sources, chemical nature, fate of contaminants, and their interaction and impacts with the ecosystem, and the living organisms in the environment. It also relates ecotoxicology to risk assessment including assessment, monitoring, management and protection of the environment from toxicants. Students gain insights into the impacts of pollutants on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They delve into sustainable environmental management strategies, including pollution prevention, remediation, and ecological risk assessments.