Education Projects

Guatemalan society is highly vulnerable to climate change. In the last decade, climate change has affected the main productive sectors of the country, compromising food production, causing economic losses, and substantial social and environmental impact to rural communities. The region of Quetzaltenango is important in the production of vegetables for local consumption (food security) and for export to neighbouring countries (foundational to the region’s economy). Food production is not only important because it contributes to the nation’s food security but also because it is a major source of employment and as such it adds to the region’s development. An important characteristic of Quetzaltenango’s region is that farmers are predominantly women.

Specifically, for water resource management the EO4SD will seek to demonstrate the benefits and utility of EO services in response to stakeholder requirements for water resources monitoring and management at local to basin scales.

Some of the key water related priority areas where EO-based geo-information is needed include:

River basin characterization and change monitoring (e.g. hydrological network mapping, long-term climate change analysis)

Water supply and sanitation (e.g. monitoring of water quality, extent and level of lakes and rivers to support management for agricultural, industrial and urban water use)

Hydrological management (e.g. modeling and forecasts of runoff, river discharge and groundwater abstraction)

Water productivity (e.g. mapping of biomass production, evapotranspiration and crop type)

Risk management of natural hydrological hazards (e.g. mapping and forecasting of flooding, drought, landslides)

Industrial activity assessment (e.g. monitoring of freshwater fisheries, aquaculture, hydropower and mining)

The four semester E+ Master programme starts every year in winter semester (October) and will enroll up to 25 students from all over the world. Language of instruction is English. The full-time programme awards a total of 120 ECTS and is to be completed in two years. Students obtain 30 ECTS in each semester/at each university, respectively 30 ECTS for their master thesis.

The qualification finally awarded to the students is the joint degree "Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Cartography" issued by Technische Universitaet Munchen, Technische Universitaet Wien, Technische Universitaet Dresden and University of Twente/ITC together.

The MSc in Geo-Information and Earth Observation for Environmental Modelling and Management (GEM) integrates the educational excellence of four leading university partners: Lund University, Sweden; University of Tartu, Estonia; Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium; and University of Twente, The Netherlands. It is coordinated by the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente. Each partner has internationally recognised MSc programmes in geospatial sciences applied to social and environmental issues. Geo-information technology plays a central role in transparent analysis of data and information in order to generate viable policies and effective business decisions as part of European and global development. Skills in this field continue to be in high demand by industry, government and NGOs. Planners, managers, policy makers, and researchers need to further improve their understanding of the complexity of factors involved in in managing the environment, and to cooperate with professionals from diverse backgrounds. GEM graduates find relevant work bridging the economically and socially important fields of environment and information technology.

The National Lands Commission of Bhutan has the task to make their data available for the Bhutanese community. There is a strong demand to share the data through web applications. NLCS lacks the knowledge and trained personnel to design, create and deliver these as requested. ITC’s GIP Department was in the process of updating the certificate short course derived from the specialization modules of the discontinued GFM Diploma course. The modernized version of this certificate short course addresses the process of design, production and dissemination of a web-map application from scratch.

This project aims to strengthen the national system of Land Administration (LA) as a pre-condition for rural economic development. The Consortium aims to ensure the country can count on a qualified workforce at the level of Higher Education, TVET and informal training to support public and private initiatives in land tenure security.