The course develops an interdisciplinary knowledge and technical skills base for understanding soils and land resources and sustainable land management in a rural development context and from a systems perspective; offers students from a wide range of scientific backgrounds a systematic integrated approach so that appropriate land use technologies can be based on sustainable utilisation of land resources; problems of land management; soil conservation; environmental degradation; sustainability and rural development issues; ‘from the farm to the catchment scale’; are addressed through a systems perspective; includes training in the skills required to assess the physical, ecological, economic and social components of the rural resource base; and to promote ecologically sound land husbandry within agricultural and environmental management systems.