Water Management | Courses & research | Environmental & Energy Management

During your Master’s in Environmental & Energy Management (MEEM), you will collect a total of 60 EC within one year. The curriculum consists of a set of compulsory courses for all students, which will give you a solid foundation in all three domains of environment, energy and water, as well as two personal development electives. You will focus specifically on the domain of your specialisation – water management – in the case project and your master’s thesis, which take place in the second semester (February to August).

European Credit Transfer System

Student workload at Dutch universities is expressed in EC, also named ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System), which is widely used throughout the European Union. In the Netherlands, each credit represents 28 hours of work.

STructure

	Number of EC
Compulsory courses	31 EC	Environmental Management Energy Management Water Management Sustainability & Law Policy & Sustainability Rurban Commons Academic Research Skills Research Proposal
Personal Development Electives You choose two out of five electives	4 EC	Sustainability & Justice Digitalisation & Sustainability Sustainability Game Stakeholder and Social Network Analysis Critical Sustainable Futures
Case Project Water Management	10 EC	You work on a case related to the field of water management, together with a team of fellow students, applying the challenge-based learning approach.
Master’s thesis Water Management	15 EC	You will finish your Master’s with your master’s thesis.
Total EC first year	60 EC

or meet online with a student and gain first-hand experience!

Case project in Water Management

In your second semester, you will work on a case study project together with a group of your fellow students. This project reflects a real-life, relevant challenge in society, related to water management, climate, sustainability and resilience. You and your team mates will come up with your own topic within this field, and develop a strategy and design a (potential) solution to this challenge. You can even connect to external clients, like a municipality, regional authority (water board, province), NGO, or a company, and present your solution there!

Examples of case study projects students took on:

Comparative research into urban groundwater aquifers, and legal and policy settings of large cities in the Global South
Exploring and assessing policy and licensing measures to reduce surface water contamination
Developing strategies for the restoration of coastal areas affected by degradation

Master's thesis in Water Management

You will complete MEEM by writing your master’s thesis. The choice of your thesis topic is largely up to you. You can come up with your own proposal, or you could connect with ongoing research in areas such as water governance and policy, (waste-)water treatment, flood and drought management, climate change adaptation or nature-based solutions. You could complete (part of) your graduation project at an external organisation as well. This is a great way for you to combine your academic skills with hands-on experience!

In your master’s thesis, you could focus on subjects such as:

What do urban climate change adaptation strategies on different continents look like and what is the potential of blue-green infrastructure measures?
How can the water efficiency in industrial beer production of Grolsch Brewery be improved?
To what extent are various technologies for water-based renewable energy competitive?

Career perspectives