DEVELOPMENT OF AN E-LEARNING PROGRAMME ON SOIL AND FLUVIAL ECOENGINEERING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ENVIRONMENT

Soil- and fluvial ecoengineering are sustainable tools to improve resilience against soil loss and soil degradation. These techniques are widely used in Atlantic and Eurasian ecoregions and are gaining strength within the Mediterranean regions. Ecoengineering techniques are also useful to protect natural riparian areas affected by rapid environmental changes. Ecoengineering works have a clear dynamic response. At first the initial rigidity is offered by the inert materials. Eventually, as time progresses, the vegetation will play the major role in the stabilization of the site. Because of this, a monitoring scheme must be included in the work schedule in order to verify the successes and errors of the intervention and justify potential corrective action. The difficulties faced by this kind of works in a Mediterranean climate demands a highly specialised knowledge triangle (new processes, methods and services) within the sector.
Therefore, in the framework of the European Project ECOMED (ERASMUS+), one of the main goals of this project is to generate by 2018, a sector-specific theoretical and practical learning programme essential for the specialization of the Mediterranean Ecoengineering sector.
The base for the structure of this learning programme, was the analysis of the existing needs in the Mediterranean ecoengineering sector. This approach was accomplished doing a literature review from conference and symposia proceedings throughout the last 15 years and also several ecoengineering enterprises and HEI were surveyed regarding experiences with training and application of bioengineering techniques in the Mediterranean region.
With this long term programme, new dynamics will be started. The developed syllabus will be continually updated with new findings and conclusions reached within the long term interaction scheme in a Mediterranean environment and within a climate change scenario. Following this approach, changing climate effects will be detected and incorporated into the protocols and routines of the sector.

Acknowledgement:
This work has been supported by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), through ECOMED project (575796-EPP-1-2016-1-ES-EPPKA2-KA) and ECOSTAR project (562358-EPP-1-2015-1-IT-EPPKA2-KA).