LEAD 612 - Organization of Natural Systems

Credits: 3 Credit Hours

This course is an integrated survey of the design, function, and maintenance of ecological (“natural”) systems; their organization, structure, continuity, and changes regardless of spatial or temporal scales. The topic will be explored from a systems theory perspective, will draw heavily from resilience management concepts, and will add historic, economic, and sociopolitical information to place these systems into the larger contextual paradigm of the socio-ecological system. Among the aspects of ecological systems to be emphasized will be their diversity, the interaction of their parts, their development and change over time, and their sustainability in the face of natural fluctuations and externally applied disturbance. (IES track)