The module gives an overview of ecoonomic  and legal aspects related to restoration ecology and modelling. Both an integrative approach and a case study-oriented approach to environmental, legal and ecomomic problems of restoration and their solution will be taken. The module consists of three parts, including legal, economic, and modelling questions of restoration ecology. The different aspects will be discussed by a field case study (excursion).

Part 1: Legal aspects of restoration ecology

Objectives are to enable students to find, to evaluate and to work with legal sources on restoration ecology on the base of case studies. The relevant legal sources will be discussed. Students will be able

• to overview the sources, the structure and basic principles of law related to restoration ecology.
• to decide which legal sources are relevant and/or useful for solving a concrete problem.
• to introduce and to take into consideration legal questions to concrete projects in restoration ecology and to find out the barriers and limitations based on law.

Part 2: Restoration Economics

The main goal of restoration economics is to provide participants with an understanding of why economic analysis is relevant for restoration. The participants shall learn how to apply economic knowledge to evaluate and improve restoration projects and policies. They will become familiar with cost assessment, benefit analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis of restoration projects and policies.

Part 3: Restoration ecology and modeling

Objectives are to enable students to identify and formulate ecological modelling problems and to apply modelling techniques to experimental data sets on regional and global scales. Students will be able to understand and to use statistical techniques or sophisticated ecological models to solve ecosystem management problems. They will be able to judge the importance of model based ecosystem and resource management actions. Finally students will be enabled to understand basic concepts of multivariate statistics and to apply SPSS routines for analysis of environmental data. The students will be able to generate small reports independently and to present their results.