Environmental Economics (B.Sc.(Ag.Env.Sc.)) (24 credits)
Offered by: Agricultural Economics (Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
Degree: Bachelor of Science (Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
Program credit weight: 24
Program Description
This specialization integrates environmental sciences and decision making with the economics of environment and sustainable development. It is designed to prepare students for careers in natural resource management and the analysis of environmental problems and policies.
This specialization is limited to students in the Major Agricultural Economics.
For information on academic advising, see: http://www.mcgill.ca/macdonald/studentinfo/advising
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please refer to Visual Schedule Builder. A technical issue is causing the "Terms offered" field to incorrectly report "this course is not currently offered" for many courses in the Course Catalogue.
Required Courses (12 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| AGEC 491 | Research and Methodology. | 3 |
Research and Methodology. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Conceptual and philosophical foundations of research methodology, and the procedural aspects of planning, designing and conducting research in applied economics. | ||
| ENVB 305 | Population and Community Ecology. | 3 |
Population and Community Ecology. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Interactions between organisms and their environment; historical and current perspectives in applied and theoretical population and community ecology. Principles of population dynamics, feedback loops, and population regulation. Development and structure of communities; competition, predation and food web dynamics. Biodiversity science in theory and practice. | ||
| ENVB 437 | Assessing Environmental Impact. | 3 |
Assessing Environmental Impact. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Principles and practice of Environmental Assessment (EA) in Canada and internationally. Exploration of issues surrounding impact assessment for sustainable development in different sectors, including their limitations. | ||
| ENVB 506 | Quantitative Methods: Ecology. | 3 |
Quantitative Methods: Ecology. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Introduction to a broad range of innovative data analysis strategies commonly applied to ecological data. How to apply these strategies. Common “best practices” for data management, study design, and graphing techniques. | ||
Complementary Courses (12 credits)
12 credits chosen from the following list:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| AGRI 310 | Internship in Agriculture/Environment. | 3 |
Internship in Agriculture/Environment. Terms offered: Summer 2025, Fall 2025, Winter 2026 Internship on working farms or in other appropriate businesses of the agri-food/environment industries. | ||
| BREE 217 | Hydrology and Water Resources. | 3 |
Hydrology and Water Resources. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Introduction to water resources and hydrologic cycle. Precipitation and hydrologic frequency analysis. Soil water processes, infiltration theory and modeling. Evapotranspiration estimation methods and crop water requirements. Surface runoff estimation as a function of land use modifications. Estimation of peak runoff rates. Unit hydrograph. Design of open channels and vegetated waterways. | ||
| BREE 327 | Bio-Environmental Engineering. | 3 |
Bio-Environmental Engineering. Terms offered: Fall 2025 An introduction to how humans affect the earth's ecosystem and projections for the needs of food, water, air and energy to support the human population. Ecologically-reasonable coping strategies including biofuels, bioprocessing, waste management, and remediation methods. | ||
| ECON 225 | Economics of the Environment. | 3 |
Economics of the Environment. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A study of the application of economic theory to questions of environmental policy. Particular attention will be given to the measurement and regulation of pollution, congestion and waste and other environmental aspects of specific economies. | ||
| ECON 326 | Ecological Economics. | 3 |
Ecological Economics. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Macroeconomic and structural aspects of the ecological crisis. A course in which subjects discussed include the conflict between economic growth and the laws of thermodynamics; the search for alternative economic indicators; the fossil fuels crisis; and "green'' fiscal policy. | ||
| ECON 405 | Natural Resource Economics. | 3 |
Natural Resource Economics. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Topics include: Malthusian and Ricardian Scarcity; optimal depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources; exploration, risk and industry structure, and current resources, rent and taxation. Current public policies applied to the resource industries, particularly those of a regulatory nature. | ||
| ENVB 222 | St. Lawrence Ecosystems. | 3 |
St. Lawrence Ecosystems. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Integrative field biology course about the biodiversity and ecology of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Research projects about the natural history of the regional flora and fauna. Fundamentals of community, ecosystem and landscape ecology. | ||
| ENVB 301 | Meteorology. | 3 |
Meteorology. Terms offered: Fall 2025 The physical processes underlying weather. Topics include: the atmosphere - its properties (structure and motion), and thermodynamics (stability, heat and moisture); clouds and precipitation; air masses and fronts; mid-latitude weather systems and severe weather. | ||
| ENVB 529 | GIS for Natural Resource Management. | 3 |
GIS for Natural Resource Management. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis techniques to the presentation and analysis of ecological information, including sources and capture of spatial data; characterizing, transforming, displaying spatial data; and spatial analysis to solve resource management problems. | ||
| ENVR 203 | Knowledge, Ethics and Environment. | 3 |
Knowledge, Ethics and Environment. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Introduction to cultural perspectives on the environment: the influence of culture and cognition on perceptions of the natural world; conflicts in orders of knowledge (models, taxonomies, paradigms, theories, cosmologies), ethics (moral values, frameworks, dilemmas), and law (formal and customary, rights and obligations) regarding political dimensions of critical environments, resource use, and technologies. | ||
| MGPO 440 | Strategies for Sustainability. | 3 |
Strategies for Sustainability. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course explores the relationship between economic activity, management, and the natural environment. Using readings, discussions and cases, the course will explore the challenges that the goal of sustainable development poses for our existing notions of economic goals, production and consumption practices and the management of organizations. | ||
| MICR 331 | Microbial Ecology. | 3 |
Microbial Ecology. Terms offered: Winter 2026 The ecology of microorganisms, primarily bacteria and archaea, and their roles in biogeochemical cycles. Microbial interactions with the environment, plants, animals and other microbes emphasizing the underlying genetics and physiology. Diversity, evolution (microbial phylogenetics) and the application of molecular biology in microbial ecology. | ||
| NRSC 333 | Pollution and Bioremediation. | 3 |
Pollution and Bioremediation. Terms offered: Fall 2025 The environmental contaminants which cause pollution; sources, amounts and transport of pollutants in water, air and soil; waste management. | ||
| WILD 421 | Wildlife Conservation. | 3 |
Wildlife Conservation. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Study of current controversial issues focusing on wildlife conservation. Topics include: animal rights, exotic species, ecotourism, urban wildlife, multi-use of national parks, harvesting of wildlife, biological controls, and endangered species. | ||