Ecosystem services and water: higher education approach

Abstract

Ecosystem service (ES) concepts can provide valuable approaches to substantiate arguments focused on decision-making in management processes set for environmental issues. Despite the growing interest in this topic, the introduction of these concepts in higher education remains incipient due to lack of perception about the important role played by these contents in engineers’ training. The aim of the current study is to investigate the way discipline matrices address contents focused on ESs associated with water, along with pedagogical projects of Environmental Engineering courses at Federal Technological University of Paraná - UTFPR. The herein conducted survey identified 35 didactic units associated with this topic. In light of the foregoing, approaches to help professors to introduce ES in the structure of the identified contents were herein suggested based on references available in the specialized literature, by taking into consideration a more integrated perspective about engineers’ training. Furthermore, the herein proposed approach met the aims of the new national curriculum guidelines for engineering courses.