Soil and Water Management

We offer you high quality education:

* Formation in the principles and methods of soil and water management, in order to provide with the physical environment, water and nutrient availability for plant development, preventing environmental degradation and protecting the environmental functions of both resources.


* The participants are five universities from the Ebro Valley and the Mediterranean, with a long experience of collaboration in post-graduate and PhD programmes, which will give a joint MSc degree.


* Duration of 90 ECTS, according to the guidelines of the EHEA.


* Tuition period from January to September 2009 in Lleida, in afternoon sessions.

Participant Universities * University of Barcelona
University Autònoma de Barcelona
Public University of Navarra

Formation in the principles and methods of management of soils and waters, that provide the physicist average and the availability of water and nutrients adapted for the development and economic production of cultures, avoiding the degradation of means and protecting the environmental functions of both resources.

Soils and water are main production factors for agriculture and forestry and as such they are the responsible for food safety. Besides, they are the control factors for erosion processes and they determine flood risks, landslides or land degradation processes as salinization when they are not well managed. They are the components of the environment normally used for residue disposal, therefore they have pollution hazards that have to be assessed when determining the quality of the environment. Due to their roles as production factors, risk agents and clue components determining environmental quality, they are the main elements to consider in any land use and environmental planning.

In the frame of environmental sciences, agricultural and forest engineering, it is necessary a formation allowing the selection, development and application of soil and water management systems adapted to different biophysical, technological, socioeconomical and cultural conditions. This formation must comprise a deep knowledge of information about these resources: generation of information -soil maps and databases, water inventory- management, interpretation and evaluation for different purposes, and being able to use it in projects or land planning.

This master is focused on the systems of the Ebro Valley and adjacent mediterranean area, where the participating spanish universities and centers are located. It is a semi-arid mediterranean region with diverse conflicts of soil and water uses, representative of the mediterranean basin. This region has a strong pressure on water use due to the high water demands of different types affecting the land polulation equilibrium. The agricultural use of the soil is of prime importance: a high percentage of the land surface is under irrigation, some of them more than one century old, but with new irrigation poligons being developed. The abandonment of rural areas and the consequent increase of forest cover in the mountain areas also affect the amount and quality of water resources. Agricultural, industrial and urban areas generate residues that have to be properly managed in order to avoid water and soil pollution. This region is representative of other areas in the mediterranean basin or under mediterranean climates around the globe with conflicts of land and water use.

The central objective of the MAGSA is the formation in the management of soils and waters, which provide the physical conditions and the availability of water and nutrients for the development and the economic production of crops, avoiding their degradation and protecting the environmental functions of both resources. The professional possibilities that are obtained on having ended the master are in administrations, research, formation or private sector, in the area of inventories and evaluation of natural resources (soils and waters) in the frame of the global change of the climate, as resources of production, components of ecosystems and others, or in the management of areas affected by extractive activities.