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The course will focus on UK freshwater and coastal aquatic environments and will be delivered by a combination of lectures, seminar sessions and fieldwork. Students will take part in a week-long fieldtrip to the world famous and highly designated North Norfolk Coast in eastern England and will be introduced to the River Glaven catchment and its associated coastal marshes as well as the stunning Blakeney Point nature reserve. Students will be introduced to a range of local freshwater and coastal wetland species covering fishes, crayfish, invertebrates, birds, mammals and plants. Fieldwork emphasis will be placed on survey techniques, species identification training and key contemporary aquatic conservation and restoration issues. Follow-up lectures and seminars will focus on landscape ecology and rewilding, restoration ecology, practical conservation and its dilemmas and stakeholder engagement especially linked to issues highlighted during the fieldwork.

The overall aim will be to immerse students in the world of contemporary aquatic conservation and restoration, with a blurring of the apparent boundaries between different freshwater and coastal settings. Further aims include:

• to introduce freshwater and coastal environments of the North Norfolk coast via fieldwork
• to introduce ecological and conservation survey methods
• to provide identification skills for a variety of aquatic organism groups including fishes, crayfish, invertebrates, saltmarsh and freshwater plants and amphibians
• to introduce students to key issues in the freshwater and coastal conservation and restoration scene
• to demonstrate the importance of integrating different aquatic habitats into landscape- and catchment-scale conservation approaches
• to highlight the importance of stakeholder engagement to successful aquatic conservation