New Curriculum

CURRICULUM

The Mountain Forestry Master Programme consists of courses and other requirements worth a total of 120 ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System). 

This is equivalent to a duration of four semesters (a total of 3,000 60-minute credit hours). The programme is divided into:

Compulsory courses 

The Master’s Programme in Mountain Forestry consists of 6 Modules. Students have to take all compulsory courses of all 6 Modules to graduate from the Master’s Programme in Mountain Forestry. 

Elective courses 

Elective courses worth a total of 20 ECTS credits are required to complete the master’s programme. 10 ECTS credits have to be chosen out of the elective courses pool of 1 Module for specialisation. The remaining 10 ECTS credits have to be taken out of the elective courses pool of at least 2 Modules.

Offered Modules:
Module - Introduction to mountain forestry and scientific skills
Compulsory courses:
  • Field Camp I - Introduction to mountain forestry and forest sciences
  • Methods of data collection, management and analysis
  • Scientific methods and writing skills
  • Master seminar
  • Master thesis

Module – Ecology of Mountain Forests
Compulsory courses:
  • Forest dynamics and fire ecology
  • Mountain forest soils and forest nutrition
  • Field Camp II - Concepts and methods of site ecology, forest growth and yield
  • Mountain forest climatology and headwater hydrology
Elective courses:
  • Biodiversity and conservation in mountain regions
  • Effects of air pollutants and nutrient deficiencies on mountain forests
  • Chemistry for forestry
  • Specific methods on soil analysis
  • Physical and selected chemical methods of soil analysis
  • Forest and water

Module – Economic and social dimensions in mountain forestry
Compulsory courses:
  • Forest resource economics
  • Mountain forest policy
  • Participatory methods in development research and practice
  • Project management in development co-operation
Elective courses:
  • Economics of multiple use forestry
  • Innovations for SFM
  • Applied development research I
  • Applied development research II
  • Organisational behaviour and gender issues
  • Forest products, marketing and strategy

Module – Inventory and Monitoring
Compulsory courses:
  • Forest inventory
  • Modelling of mountain forest ecosystems
  • Remote sensing and GIS in natural resource management
Elective courses:
  • Remote sensing and GIS in natural resource management
  • 3P - sampling

Module – Forest Management for goods and environmental services
Compulsory courses:
  • Natural resource management in mountain forests
  • Agro forestry in mountain regions
  • The role of forests in mountain risk engineering
  • Forest protection
Elective courses:
  • Protection and mitigation measures against natural hazards
  • Risk management and vulnerability assessment
  • Mountain hazard processes
  • Decision support systems
  • Multiple criteria decision making in natural resource management
  • Fire management in mountain forest ecosystem
  • Adapting forest management to climate change
  • Natural resources management in mountainous areas III - Wildlife problems

Module – Forest engineering
Compulsory course:
  • Harvesting systems for mountainous regions
  • Field Camp III – Integrated forest management applications
  • Road network planning
  • Cable yarding project
Elective courses:
  • Technology assessment
  • CAD - Computer aided design
  • Timber harvesting

Current term timetables: https://online.boku.ac.at/BOKUonline/webnav.ini

Full version of the curriculum: https://boku.ac.at/en/studienservices/studien/master-en/h066429