Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate - Learn how to link between environment, disasters and disaster risk reduction

About this Course

Welcome to the second round of Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate! We are back, thanks to popular demand after an enormously successful first round with over 12,000 participants.

Originally developed and launched in 2015 by the Technical University of Cologne, Germany and UN Environment, this MOOC explores interlinkages between ecosystems, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. It enhances knowledge and skills for tackling complex issues such as resilience and transformation, sustainable development, ecosystem management, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and how they can be operationalized.

It was designed for disaster managers and practitioners, climate change adaptation professionals, development planners, project implementers and policy makers and students from all walks of life. We have added some new interviews and dusted off some materials, but the essentials of our first course are still there.

Leadership Track

Start with the Leadership Track: six hours of learning for busy decision-makers, professionals or students curious about the topic. The Leadership Track consists of 6 sessions of 30-40 minutes, depending on how much time you spend on the reading materials, including 5-10 minute video-presentations and accompanying self-study readers drafted exclusively for this MOOC, quizzes, an on-line learning game and our interactive discussion forum. This track will be launched on September 18, 2017 and will remain open for students to take at their own pace until early 2018. You will be awarded a certificate upon successful completion (no fees) and will be eligible to enroll for the Expert track.

Expert Track

The Expert track consists of an additional 15 hours of learning for professionals and students who want more in-depth knowledge and some skills training on the nuts and bolts of ecosystem based disaster risk reduction and adaptation. This track will go live on 20 November, 2017 and will close on 31 December, 2017. This module also consists of video-presentations, special interviews, self-study readers, quizzes, a case study teaching guide, additional video resources and discussion forum. For the final (peer-reviewed) assignment, you will get to design your own Eco-DRR project. Also for this track, you will receive a (no-fee) certificate, along with the first ever “Disasters and Ecosystems - The Book” (PDF format)!

What you will learn

After completion of the Leadership Track, the participant will be able to:

Define basic concepts of disasters, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and resilience
Recognize key linkages between ecosystems, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation
How ecosystems contribute to reducing impacts pre- and post- disasters
Managing resilience and transformation

Course Outline and Schedule Hide course outline

Course Outline

Leadership track – Launch date: September 18

Unit 0. Welcome to Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate
Unit 1. Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate - why take this course?
Unit 2. Introduction to disasters, risk reduction and climate change
Unit 3. Links between disasters, disaster risk reduction, adaptation and key international actors Unit 4. Principles and challenges of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) and adaptation (EbA)
Unit 5. Ecosystem management contributions pre- and post-disasters
Unit 6. Managing resilience and transformation
Continue with the Expert track…

Meet the instructors

Instructors include international faculty members from Germany, Egypt and Switzerland, supported by a line-up of expert guest lecturers and exclusive interviews with world leaders in the field of climate change, disaster risk reduction and environment: