Programme structure
The programme totals 75 ECTS: 30 in Semester 1, 30 in Semester 2 and 15 during the intensive summer period. All eight courses and the traineeship are compulsory. The published 2026 curriculum requires successful completion of these components; it does not list a separate master’s dissertation.
Semester 1 — 30 ECTS
| Course | Type | ECTS |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals of forest, forest land and protected areas inventory & monitoring | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Remote sensing & GIS for natural environment monitoring | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Forest structure | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Sampling in inventory & monitoring | Compulsory | 7.5 |
Semester 2 — 30 ECTS
| Course | Type | ECTS |
|---|---|---|
| Geospatial technologies in forest inventory | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Monitoring carbon stocks | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Protected areas monitoring - Vegetation management for biodiversity | Compulsory | 7.5 |
| Statistical data analysis - Databases | Compulsory | 7.5 |
Intensive summer period — 15 ECTS
| Activity | Workload | ECTS |
|---|---|---|
| Compulsory traineeship | 375 hours | 15 |
Contact hours and credits
Each course has at least 39 teaching hours. The published timetable structure allocates 35 hours to synchronous distance teaching and four hours to in-person teaching, with no asynchronous hours allocated in the course table. Each course carries 7.5 ECTS; contact hours and ECTS measure different aspects of study.
Across eight courses, the taught component comprises 312 hours: 280 online and 32 in person. The 375-hour traineeship is an additional component. Its 15 ECTS correspond to 25 hours of workload per credit, as specified in Article 11 of the Regulation.
Semester 1 — course outlines
Each course below is compulsory, carries 7.5 ECTS and has 35 synchronous online teaching hours plus four in-person hours. The course titles follow the English titles in the 2026 Regulation; the outlines translate its published syllabus.
Fundamentals of forest, forest land and protected areas inventory & monitoring
Definitions used in national legislation, ELSTAT and LULUCF; land-cover categories and forest types; European forest inventories; soil-resource inventory; permanent forest-plot monitoring protocols; monitoring growth, health and functions of forest ecosystems; categories of protected areas and the Natura 2000 network.
Remote sensing & GIS for natural environment monitoring
Basic principles of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing; primary and secondary geospatial data sources; vector and raster data; electromagnetic radiation and major remote-sensing systems; geodatabases, reference systems and map projections; importing data and running spatial queries; finding and downloading remote-sensing data and products; mapping and monitoring natural ecosystems and protected areas.
Forest structure
Horizontal and vertical forest structure, canopy closure and age classes; structural diversity and biodiversity indicators; silvicultural and management systems; forest dynamics; the effects of disturbances on forest structure; regeneration.
Sampling in inventory & monitoring
Sampling units (individual trees and sample plots), sample size and plot area; simple random and stratified sampling; sampling and modelling for forest-biomass inventory; unequal-probability sampling, including list sampling, probability proportional to prediction (PPP) and probability proportional to size (PPS); multiphase, multistage and cluster sampling.
Semester 2 — course outlines
Each course below is compulsory, carries 7.5 ECTS and has 35 synchronous online teaching hours plus four in-person hours. The course titles follow the English titles in the 2026 Regulation; the outlines translate its published syllabus.
Geospatial technologies in forest inventory
Satellite and unmanned-aircraft data for forest inventory; vegetation spectral behaviour; processing and transforming multispectral data; detecting changes in forest ecosystems; forest photo-interpretation; digital-image classification; supervised classification for vegetation mapping; forest-map accuracy assessment; thematic map production in GIS; online forest-monitoring tools and services.
Monitoring carbon stocks
Forests in the carbon cycle; Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF); estimating above- and below-ground biomass and carbon; carbon flux through fine-root production; standing and fallen deadwood volume and decay; forest-floor biomass and carbon; litterfall carbon flux; soil organic carbon; forest CO2 removals; risks of carbon-stock loss and measures to conserve stocks.
Protected areas monitoring - Vegetation management for biodiversity
Terrestrial protected areas in Greece, protection zones, extent and characteristics; forest and stand management in relation to biodiversity; vegetation management and interventions in protected areas; protected-area monitoring; biodiversity assessment and the graded biodiversity index for Greek forests.
Statistical data analysis - Databases
National Forest Inventory databases; big data; meta-analysis; survival analysis; models for estimating tree- and stand-level biometric variables and their increments.
Assessment and completion
All courses and the traineeship must be passed. Assessment methods are announced by each course coordinator; the pass mark is 5 on the 0–10 scale. See the Study Guide: attendance and assessment and traineeship requirements.
Source: Article 10 of the 2026 Internal Regulation (Greek PDF).