Course description

The link to the new website is:
https://www.uniba.it/it/ricerca/dipartimenti/disspa/dottorato-di-ricerca/gestione-sostenibile-del-territorio

Educational objectives and research topics

The interuniversity PhD course between the University of Bari Aldo Moro and the Polytechnic University of Bari aims to integrate the engineering, agro-forestry and environmental knowledge that are typical of the various scientific areas that contribute today, even if with a different approach, to define the forms of sustainable land management. The goal is to explore new frontiers, both of basic and applied research, which give impetus to the knowledge necessary for the management of environmental and territorial complexity, promoting technological innovation in line with the New Green Deal that will characterize national policies and communities of the near future.

The doctorate intends to support a transversal approach that sees, in the development of ecosystemic approaches and actions, the ways in which to combine development and environmental protection, preserve natural resources and optimize their use to maximize benefits, guarantee resilience and adaptation to climate and environmental change.

Thanks to the integration of different disciplines, at the end of the course, the PhD will have the level of skills required to conduct a highly innovative research activity and implement applications, both in the technical and academic roles, in the field of land management engineering, biosystem engineering and agro-forestry sciences. Particular attention is paid to the issue of technology transfer.

The objectives of the Course are pursued in the following topics, which are not exhaustive:

1. sustainable management of natural resources,
2. strategies for mitigation and adaptation to climate and environmental changes,
3. the construction and management aspects of structures and plants,
4. the study of the climate-soil-vegetation interaction,
5. prediction and defense from extreme events,
6. the study and mitigation of soil erosion processes,
7. green infrastructures,
8. prevention and active interventions against forest fires,
9. integrated waste water treatment aimed at recovering raw materials,
10. the methods for assessing environmental sustainability (e.g. LCA),
11. the management of information made available by remote sensors (remote sensing) and proximity sensors (precision farming),
12. the use of technologies for the analysis and management of large amounts of data (IoT and Big Data).

Professional possibilities

The training activities planned in this PhD program have the objective to allow participants to develop a vision and a broad awareness on a multi and inter-disciplinary context. This is necessary nowadays to operate in a context of complex challenges related to (food) security, climate change, technological innovation, and environmental sustainability. The PhD program will contribute to train public and private managers, professionals, and researchers and will allow to qualify and specialize them. In addition, it will induce participants to be more autonomous, responsible, intellectually flexible, and creative on decisions to be taken and, consequently, to be rapidly involved in working activities related to planning, management, and environmental protection.

Given the breadth of the topics and the typical interdisciplinary nature of engineering, biosystem engineering and agro-forestry sciences, the professional opportunities for participants to the PhD program on "Sustainable land management" are wide-ranging in Italy and throughout the world. In particular, professionals and qualified technicians with specific skills are requested, i.e., i) researchers to be hired by research centers and public or private laboratories, ii) technical managers to be hired by industries and/or national and international administrative bodies, and iii) researchers and professors to be hired by universities.