Educating for an Integrated Management of Coastal Zone: An Example of a Course Initiating to an Applied Multidisciplinary Approach

Abstract

The growing utilization of coastal zones has become for our societies a priority problem, which requires a multidisciplinary approach. A related question is: How can we educate for a global management of these zones? and there is a temptation to answer that a quasi-encyclopedic knowledge is needed. The French curriculum for “agronomist engineers”, through multidisciplinary education, prepares for a wide range of jobs related to agro-food sector, environment, and life sciences. We include coastal zones in that wide scope for several reasons: water quality, as marine waters are the final receptacle of continental watersheds; food production, as coastal zones are placed for marine aquaculture and fisheries; management of natural sites, both on marine and land sides; public policies, including ICZM. We created, in 1997, a course about coastal zone as part of second year of curriculum (eq. Master course, 1st year), to initiate future agronomist engineers to a multidisciplinary approach applied to integrated management of coastal zone. The shortness of the course (160 h) obliges to select clearly education skills: we give a large role to the application, through a case study with fieldwork (5 weeks among 6), in a new zone every year; the course uses knowledge and methods taught in common core, completed by specialized lectures (24 h). The students, by groups of four, investigate subjects chosen as the main questions for coastal zone management in the studied region. Interestingly, the selected subjects along the 19 editions show evolutions linked with those of the key questions on French coastal zones.