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2025-2026 / UEEN0002-2

Land rehabilitation in urban environments

Duration

20h Th, 10h Pr, 10h Labo., 20h Proj., 2d FW

Number of credits

 Master in urban planning and territorial development, professional focus in Redesigning post-industrial cities (RePIC)4 crédits 

Lecturer

Serge Brouyère, Frédéric Collin

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The course focuses on the rehabilitation of land and recycling of soilsin urban areas rather than the consumption of new land to combat urban sprawl. This frequently implies the need to manage land, from excavation to reuse or landfill, through excavation and treatment for improvement and/or remediation.


Lessons relate to the geomechanical aspects associated with these principles of land rehabilitation in urban areas and to the management of the pollution that is frequently detected.


Geomechanical aspects: reminder of some basic notions on the geomechanical properties of soils and land in urban areas. Stability calculations and support dimensionng during excavation works. Techniques for soil improvement before reuse, introduction to engineered landfills.


Management of polluted soils: General concepts on polluted soils: main pollutants in urban soils, fate of pollutants and impacts on urban soils and groundwater. Characterisation of polluted urban soils (mainly lab tests). On-site and ex-situ soil remediation technologies for soil recycling (in-situ remediation techniques are not covered in this course, see GEOL0313 for that).

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

  • Understand the needs of land and soil recycling in urban areas
  • Apply the concepts of recycling to study cases 
The course is taught in parallel to students in master's programmes in Civil engineering, Architecture engineering, and Mining and Geology engineering(variant UEEN0002-1) in a more advanced version (particularly with regard to geology and geomechanics).

For the RePIC cohort, however, the subject matter is partly simplified and adapted to their more diverse backgrounds. Some lectures and practical work will be optional, and the first part of the group work will be simplified, replaced by the need to familiarise themselves with general information on the case study (e.g. simplified description of the geology and geomechanical properties of the sites studied).

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Basic knowledge of geology, geomechanics, chemistry and fluid transfer in the underground environment would be an advantage.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The course is composed of "ex-cathedra" lectures, seminars by industrial experts, laboratories and case studies.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Further information:

Face-to-face course


Further information:

Theoretical classroom courses.

Laboratory work.

Group work based on real case studies (polluted sites)

Field visit (soil treatment plant) and seminars with external speakers.

Students must attend and participate in group work debriefing sessions.

Attendance at seminars and field visit is compulsory.

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus
- MyULiège


Further information:

PDF copies of course materials made available to students.

Exam(s) in session

January exam session

- In-person

oral exam

August-September exam session

- In-person

written exam

Written work / report


Further information:

Work carried out by groups of students (composition of the groups defined by the teachers).

The assessment is based on the writing, by each group of students, of a report (approximately 30 pages) and a presentation of the report at the oral exam during the January session. This 15-minute presentation is given using a powerpoint presentation. It is followed by questions from the teachers on the presentation and the subject covered in the course.

In the second session (September), the mark obtained for the written report is retained (50%) and a written exam on the theoretical material (50%) is organized. 

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

The course is taught in English.

However, the context and the accessibility of information and data mean that some material may only be available in French. For example, legal texts and reference guides, extracts from soil study reports, etc.

Some seminars (with external speakers) may also be given in French.


In order to make this course accessible without pre-requisites, some parts may be partly redundant with other courses (e.g. with the the courses GEOL0277 Groundwater quality and protection, GEOL0313 Site remediation and GCIV2058 Environmental Geotechnics). These redundancies are clearly identified in the syllabus presented during the first class session.

Contacts

Serge Brouyère: Serge.Brouyere@uliege.be
Frédéric Collin: f.collin@uliege.be

Association of one or more MOOCs