Land Rehabilitation

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This course is for students interested in environmental science, with a particular interest in rehabilitation disturbed environments such as mine sites, contaminated land, urban land and wetlands.  This course will teach you how to develop management strategies to restore damaged environments and how to monitor environments during their restoration.  The course integrates the fields of land, soil and water management, geology and geography.  The course includes links to people in industry to solve practical problems.

Land Rehabilitation is a programme under the four-year Bachelor of Science.  Land Rehabilitation can be studied as a combined degree with Commerce or Economics.

Course outline

Level 1
In level 1 you will study Biology, Natural Resource Economics and Earth and Environmental Science to provide the foundation for your studies. Depending on your TEE subjects, you may also need to study Chemistry and Mathematics.

Level 2
Level 2 studies will expand your knowledge through the study of Earth Materials, Earth Surface Processes and Soils, Environmental Hydrology, Environmental Law and Policy, Field Geology, Ecology, Geographic Information Systems, Soil Biology and Plant Nutrition, and Science and its Communication.

Level 3
In level 3 you will specialise further, studying units in Land, Soil and Water Systems, Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, Case Studies in Land and Water Management,  Bometrics, and Environmental and Resource Economics. In addition you will choose units from the elective list. 

Level 4
In level 4 you will undertake a supervised research project worth 50% of your mark for fourth year. In addition you will choose units from the elective list.

The Elective list includes units such as Earth History Methods, Ecosystem Biogeochemistry, Environmental Geomorphology, Environmental Planning, Management and Sustainability, Geochemistry, Economics of Water Management, How Soils Function, Land Plant Diversity and Systematics, and Wildlife Conservation and Management.

You may earn Honours based on your marks for the project plus your four best marks from Level 3 units. 

If you are interested in finding out which subjects you will study then have a look at the Course Outline.  This will show you the core units and the options for the course, along with course rules.
You will notice that each unit has a unit code ie BIOL1130.  The first number in the unit code indicates the level of the unit - in this case level one.  For a more detailed description of a particular unit, click on the unit code.

Duration

Bachelor of Science (Land Rehabilitation): 4 years full time, up to 10 years part time

Career opportunities

Graduates of this course will have skills and knowledge relevant to industries and government agencies that manage and restore highly disturbed landscapes.  Accordingly there will be broad employment opportunities within the mining industry and other industries that are involved with contaminated site remediation and land disturbance such as salinity.  Other employers will include Department of Environment and Conservation,  Department of Industry and Resources, Department of Water and the Department of Agriculture and Food.  Consulting companies, serving both industry and government provide employment in diverse areas of land rehabilitation.