MURP: Environmental Planning & Policy Specialization

Managing human interaction with the natural environment, while protecting important natural systems, continues to be one of the critical challenges facing society. While rooted in scientific and technological fields, environmental problems and their solutions increasingly deal with public values, economics, law, policy, and planning. The environmental planning and policy specialization provides graduate education in the theoretical frameworks for environmental management, as well as the professional tools essential for developing solutions to environmental problems, including: analytical techniques for environmental planning; public participation and negotiation; institutional approaches; and policy development, implementation, and evaluation. More than 25 environmental courses are offered in Urban Affairs and Planning and other Virginia Tech departments including Civil Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Geography, Forestry and Wildlife Management, and Applied Economics. Three options are available to students within the environmental concentration:

  1. Environmental Land Analysis & Management
  2. Pollution Prevention & Control
  3. Natural Resources Management

Environmental Land Analysis and Management focuses on land analysis and evaluation methods (inventories, ecological analysis, impact assessment, geographic information systems (GIS)) as well as regulatory, non-regulatory, and collaborative approaches for managing private land use. Pollution Prevention and Control includes coursework in legal and institutional aspects, economics, and engineering, related to water and air pollution, waste management and recycling, and pollution prevention. Natural Resources Management focuses on public resources, primarily land, water, parks, and wildlife, and draws from courses in planning, policy, forestry, wildlife, engineering, and landscape architecture. Students are also able to combine interest in environmental planning and policy with other concentrations offered by the Department, including: International Development, Public and Non-Profit Management, and Physical Development Planning. Graduates of the environmental planning and policy concentration have found employment in local and regional planning offices, state and federal environmental and resources agencies, private development and consulting firms, and non-profit environmental organizations.

Courses:

Recommended Electives
UAP 4264: Environmental Ethics & Policy
UAP 4374: Land Use & Environment: Planning & Policy
UAP 4384: Pollution Control Planning & Policy
UAP 4394: Community Renewable Energy Systems
UAP 5394: Nature, Society & the Global Economy
UAP 5414: Natural Resources Planning
UAP 5794: Environmental Planning Studio
Environmental Land Analysis & Management

UAP 4184: Community Involvement
UAP 4344: Law of Critical Environmental Areas
UAP 5304: Land Use Planning
GEOG 4084: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
GEOG 4354: Introduction to Remote Sensing
LAR 5044: Land Analysis &Site Planning
Pollution Management & Control
BSE 4324: Non-Point Water Pollution
CE 4114: Public Health Engineering
CE 4144: Air Resources Engineering
CE 4594: Soil & Groundwater Pollution
CE 5114: Solid & Hazardous Waste Management
ECON 4014: Environmental Economics
Natural Resources Management
UAP 4214: Women, Environment, & Development in Global Perspective
UAP 4284: Environment, Politics and Planning: Comparative Applied Political Ecology
UAP 4344: Law of Critical Environmental Areas
AAEC 4304: Environmental and Sustainable Development Economics
CE 4344: Water Resources Planning
CE 5364: Water Law
FIW 5414: Endangered Species Management
FOR 4434: Forest Resource Policy
FOR 5484: Wilderness Management
LAR 4014: Landscape Planning & Management
LAR 4984: Environmental Impact Assessment

Programs