Name: Marius van Wingerden
Title of Master thesis: Sustainability-gap analysis of the Purus River Basin
Date of graduation: 31 March 2009
Current job: Currently in Western Australia, combining backpacking and finding a job there
The study program "Transnational ecosystem-based Water Management" focus on the management of large river systems -with the main example of Rhine throughout the study- and the problems that arise when crossing borders (the transnational aspect). The term ecosystem based implies to adapt the human interests (in this case: prevent floods) to the natural processes of the ecosystem. This new way water management is called ‘space for the river’, instead of fighting the water (the old way of preventing floods), the river is given space to flood out of its regular stream path.
Among other things the study consist of courses on environmental sciences, (transboundary) river basin management, flood management, applied ecology, ecosystem restoration, integrated environmental assessment, stakeholder involvement.
Within the study there is plenty of space to do nice projects for study credits, besides your regular courses; as I experienced. The 3 month internship and the master thesis also give a good opportunity to develop your own interests on water management aspects and it’s easy to do this abroad. It was especially this international aspect that I liked about the study. First you’ll live and study 5 months in Germany, after that you’ll have the internship (which I did in the USA) and then the masters thesis (which I partly completed in the Amazon-Brazil). The study gives a lot of space to let you do all of this, but it won’t arrange all of it for you. You’ll have to make contact with your future supervisors yourself, and you’ll have to start as early as possible doing that.
Since I don’t have a job yet, it is hard for me to tell whether the skills I obtained in TWM meet the qualifications on the job market. I do have the feeling that there is a lot of work for water managers, as all of the graduates already have found a job (and they’ve found it pretty easily).
Most of the potential bosses are governmental (e.g. water boards and state water managers like Rijkswaterstaat) or companies that advise and monitor land or water management projects. Here in Australia there is a lot of work in water management, for example in efficient water use and water saving (by the Water Corporation: governmental).