Environmental Science BSc

This module introduces the general principles of physical geography. You will be able to develop a holistic understanding of how the Earth functions as a system across a range of spatial scales, focusing in particular on the functioning of key elements of this system - notably the operation of the geosphere, atmosphere, and cryosphere - and how these elements interact to influence the evolution of the system as a whole. Your assessment for this module will develop your skills in communicating and explaining complex scientific concepts.

Humanity is facing inter-related crises of biodiversity decline and climate change. This module will give you an understanding of the anthropogenic and natural factors that determine the distribution of biodiversity, species' interactions and population sizes, and key biological-geochemical cycles that regulate environmental conditions on our planet.

You'll explore links between biodiversity decline, climate change and ecosystem function, before discussing the consequences for nature's ability to provide benefits to people and sustainability, and the solutions that can mitigate these impacts.

During this module, you'll also take part in field-based training to develop practical skills for identifying and measuring biodiversity and carbon storage.

This module provides fundamentals of environmental sciences with an emphasis on biogeochemical cycling. You will be able to learn about how challenges including loss of biodiversity, access to clean water, climate change and provision of food for a quickly growing population may best be approached and centred in sustainability (recycling, reducing consumption) and citizen engagement. The module aims to cover the main earth system approaches that underpin our understanding of environmental challenges using a systems approach. The contents focus heavily on global environmental cycles including climate, air and water resources, pollution, biological communities, geology and energy. This will provide you with foundations of scientific knowledge and understanding that you will develop further during the rest of the programme.

This module establishes a foundation in the core academic skills required for critical scholarship. You will participate in small group tutorials focusing on refining your research and writing skills. Lectures explore fundamental concepts and theories within the fields of geography and environmental science, alongside essential principles of academic integrity, including proper referencing techniques. You will gain an understanding of the relationship between academic skills and their application in future careers.

Fieldwork is an integral part of geographers' and environmental scientists' skillsets. The ability to design and carry out effective field research is a useful and transferable skill. This module will provide you with valuable hands-on training in key field methods, focusing on the local area

Geographers and Environmental Scientists are well-known for having a versatile set of practical and transferable skills. This module guides you to develop key research and software methods from across the discipline, in a lecture and practical format. Lectures introduce you to research methods and skills, such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Earth Observation (EO), statistics, and surveys. Practical sessions provide you with the exposure to industry-standard software, enabling you to develop sought after geographical and environmental employability skills.

This module introduces you to the origins, pathways and consequences of some common pollutants in water and soil. Pollutants are released into the environment through natural or anthropogenic sources, affecting the quality of the environment we live in. Therefore, understanding the physical, chemical and biological processes involved in water and soil quality is essential to protect the environment. This module provides you with the opportunity to develop employability skills through hands-on laboratory training to assess water and soil quality, with lectures covering basic concepts.

This module builds on Earth Observation (EO), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data analysis, crucial tools to understand our changing environment. In our digital world, data are everywhere, so it is important for us to understand how such data are generated, what data we can trust, and how we can analyse and visualise data to tell us more about the world. Vital aspects of this include our knowledge of data processing, handling, and spatial, statistical or mathematical analysis. This module will provide you with a theoretical framework and hands-on experience of using EO, GIS, and statistical software, thus improving your digital fluency and capability.

The ability to design, conduct, analyse and present meaningful findings from fieldwork is an essential part of degree-level Environmental Science, and enhances employability. This module builds on your learning from 'Physical Geography and Environmental Science in the Field' in the first year, addressing the philosophical background to, and the process of, designing and conducting fieldwork. The module introduces the principles of research design and provides practical experience of fieldwork to facilitate immersive learning and engagement with earth surface processes. The module is delivered through lectures, small-group teaching, and a residential fieldclass. Assessments provide you with ongoing feedback linked to the experience of designing, conducting and reflecting upon the research journey, culminating in a dissertation proposal.

This module will develop your understanding of the fundamental ecological processes that determine the diversity, structure, dynamics, and function of communities. 

We'll discuss ecological concepts and the principles and objectives of conservation biology. You'll learn about mitigating factors like economics, social science, and legislation, before exploring key tools and approaches that can reduce the adverse impact of human activity on biodiversity. 

Throughout the module, you'll use case studies to bring these topics to life, covering freshwater, marine and terrestrial communities across a wide range of ecosystems in tropical and temperate environments.

Development in the Global South is a major issue of international concern in the 21st century. This module guides you to explore contemporary development issues and examine the contribution that geographers, and geographical thought, can make towards understanding inequality, poverty and socio-economic change. Definitions of 'development', 'poverty' and 'the poor' shift and are invested with political meaning which reflect specific geographies and ways of seeing the world: you will be able to develop critical understandings of such terminology and the power dynamics implicit within them. This module addresses diverse theories, paradigms and contemporary critiques of development, and explores some of the central issues affecting processes of development. Case examples are drawn from Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia.

In order to understand global climate change, one first has to understand how the climate system works. This module will give students a strong understanding of the global climate system, focusing on the atmospheres, the oceans, and their interaction. The first part of the module will consider the main characteristics of, and processes behind, climate from the global to the local scale. The second part of the module will examine the physical characteristics of the oceans and their geographical variation, and the role of the oceans in the climate system.

This module looks at the relationship between physical processes and Earth surface landforms and landscapes at a variety of scales in space and time. Through this, you will be able to examine the influence of tectonic and environmental processes on the Earth's surface. The module will enable you to expand your understanding of key landscape development processes, concepts, and frameworks, including field and analytical approaches.

Human impacts on the world's ecosystems are profound and without precedent in Earth's history. The urgent need to understand the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, land-use change and overexploitation has meant that ecosystem science has become one of the most important biological disciplines. Knowledge developed within this discipline has also become vital for devising strategies in sustainable agriculture. This module will build on the L1 module 'Biodiversity, Climate and Conservation' by exploring human impacts on ecosystems, and their feedback on climate change, including those in natural and agricultural ecosystems. It will cover the world's and the UK's major ecosystems, considering fundamental processes operating in the present and the past. In doing so, it will consider the interacting roles of carbon cycling, climate, soils, nutrients, fire and biodiversity. Teaching methods include lectures and discussion sessions, alongside a field excursion and practical sessions that develop skills in the ecological analysis of plants and soils, and will reinforce some of the key concepts taught in lectures.

Environmental issues continue to be a key area of contemporary public concern and current political debate. They raise fundamental questions about the relationship between society and environment, and the politics and equity of that relationship. This module provides a geographical introduction to these issues and debates with examples from a range of scales, from the global to the local. You will be able to learn and understand core ideas, further developing understanding through inter-related explorations covering debates focused on  different real world themes and their potential solutions.

The landscape we live in is a dynamic place and has been in the past as well. Huge changes at a global, regional and local scale have occurred in the last 2.6 million years of the earth's history (Quaternary period). These changes are ongoing with implications for both present and future environments. You will be able to learn about methods and techniques to investigate past environmental changes, and these are illustrated using real-world examples.  You will also look at how environments have responded to past climate changes, thereby putting a context for present day climate changes and predicting future changes. Through this module you will be able to develop your academic writing, study, numeracy and data handling skills. It will also help you to be able to critically evaluate issues and problems as well as think about sustainability.

In this module you are introduced to how glaciers and ice sheets work and the connection of many glacial processes to hazards experienced by communities in polar and high-altitude environments. We examine how glaciers and ice sheets come into existence through an understanding of climate and the concept of glacier mass balance. We then consider how glacier systems function, covering topics that include the processes of ice flow, the drainage of glacial melt, and the behaviour of ice streams and ice shelves. We then examine how glaciers modify landscape through processes of erosion and sediment transport and deposition. Hazards      are explored in relation to each key area of glacier system function, from localised flood events associated with glacier-lake drainages to global sea level changes arising from past and potential future ice sheet instability.

Environmental science graduates require an appreciation of the big contemporary environmental issues and the needs of professional statutory and regulatory bodies (PSRBs). These graduate employers appreciate the study and several transferable skills developed at university but want graduates who understand the tools used by environmental science practitioners. This module guides you through producing an environmental consultancy report using a site investigation and lab work. The module also aims to help identify contemporary environmental issues and to develop communication skills via presentations.

In this  module you will be able to gain experience in leading and managing a research project. You will be expected to prepare, organise, research and report a piece of original work on a topic of your choice, under guidance by a staff mentor. You will decide on the topic and will either be expected to collect original material in order to investigate it, or to perform secondary analysis on information drawn from existing sources. The finished product is presented in the style, and at the length, associated with academic journal articles.

This module works with critical debates and approaches in Environmental Geographies to help understand a range of environmental crises (such as climate change, sustainability, waste and pollution, biodiversity loss/conservation, extinction) in front of us. You will be able to examine histories, causes and solutions for these environmental crises while drawing connections between global South and North.  The module will cover a range of scales and actors from individual behaviours to community actions, and you will be able to examine the work of local bodies and global organisations and negotiations.The module will leverage conceptual and political tools provided by environmental geographies to ask how we could tackle these multiple and co-constituted crises in socially just ways.

This module will provide the opportunity for students to develop: (i) their knowledge of topical issues in conservation; (ii) their ability to identify potential solutions to real-world conservation problems and assess the likely effectiveness of these; (iii) their skills in accessing, interpreting, and synthesising the primary scientific literature in the field of conservation; and (iv) their ability to think independently. This will be achieved by introducing students, through lectures and independent reading, to a range of topical issues in conservation science, by showing how research can inform understanding of these issues and how applied measures can mitigate these conservation problems. Students will then apply their learning by developing an essay spanning conservation problems and cutting-edge solutions. This is a lecture-based teaching module assessed by an exam essay.

This module highlights the threats to global sustainability, with a particular focus on food production and ecosystem functioning, being caused by human impacts on the environment. The module considers how we have got into the present unsustainable mess: of poor land and natural resource management, under valuing of farmers, life-threatening soil degradation causing flooding, pollution of fresh water and soil insecurity, as well as large numbers of people overconsuming and wasting food whilst others don't have enough. It shows that how we sustainably manage agro-ecosystems now, and in the immediate future, will determine the fate of humanity. Soils are the foundations of terrestrial ecosystems, food and biofuel production, but are amongst the most badly abused and damaged components of the ecosphere. Climate change, agricultural intensification, biofuels and unsustainable use of fertilizers and fossil fuels pose critical threats to global food production and sustainable agro-ecosystems - and their impacts on soil ecosystems are central to these threats. The module considers soil ecosystems function in nature and the lessons that we can then apply to develop more sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management.

Glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking in our warming world. This poses two major societal challenges: i) sea level rise; and ii) loss of water resources. In this research-led module, you will gain an understanding of glacier and ice sheet loss, methods for projecting future changes, and debates around mitigating them. The module will cover important themes, such as:·        The mechanisms behind and ways of monitoring mass loss from the ice sheets and glaciers·        Projecting sea level rise·        Changes to mountain water resources due to glacier retreat·        Adapting to and communicating glacier changeThe module is delivered through a series of activity-based seminars and practical classes.

This module introduces you to the fascinating discipline of planetary geoscience and exploration.  By using the principles of Physical Geography to study unfamiliar environments, we will explore problems that touch upon themes from climate, tectonics, geomorphology, hydrology, and life.  The module begins with the Solar System but soon focuses on planetary-scale matters, using the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) as main examples because of an explosion of knowledge gathered from their observation.  We will consider the new perspectives that such knowledge offers on the Earth's dynamic systems.

Matlab® is a computing environment and programming language with over one million users worldwide. It is used to process, analyse and visualise geoscientific data, but also has many less scientific uses; it can be used to edit digital photos and listen to online music.  This module introduces you to Matlab® by way of specific real-world examples taken from Geoscience topics using freely-available data.  Initially the module introduces you to the basics of using Matlab® before focussing on broad topics important to Geoscience.  At each stage, theory is illustrated by easy to understand practical problem solving examples, with the code used for the examples made available.  Assessment focuses on computer practicals and a data analysis project; the focus of which will be chosen by you from a range of topics, but which must use Matlab® to analyse and present data.  This module provides you with the opportunity to develop a valuable transferable skill - the ability to use a programming language to obtain/generate, analyse and present geoscientific data, thus improving your digital fluency and capability.

This module will give you the opportunity to extend your knowledge of geospatial systems and software through detailed instruction and targeted case studies. The module is taught in three parts, involving a mixture of lab-work and lectures. The two key themes are:  (a) Digital Terrain Models (DTM) from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Structure from Motion (SfM) Photogrammetry, (b) Mapping of glacial bedforms from DTM data. Lab sessions will enhance software, coding and quantitative skills. Where possible, lab sessions will include student-led components and formative peer-peer assessment elements. In taking this module you will be able to further develop your problem solving skills and develop further resilience through tackling a specific practical application of geospatial analysis that is relevant to research and industry.

Climate change and global warming are accelerating at unprecedented rates.  This affects different aspects of human lives, livelihoods, and the built and natural environment, posing significant challenges to global sustainable development.   In this research-led module, you will gain understanding of how climate change is not just manifesting through rising temperatures, but also how it is changing global circulations in complex ways with far-reaching impacts. You will explore important themes, such as:- Fundamentals of the changing climate including the Earth's energy balance, causes of climate change and the greenhouse effect.-  how the global circulation works to form the climate as we experience on earth.- how climate change has changed, and is projected to change these important circulations and the impacts on regional climate over key geographical regions.

This module will provide you with the opportunity to develop a strong understanding of current and likely future global and regional changes to the climate system.  You will also be introduced to the tools and data used by scientists to understand and project these changes.

This course examines the historical, social, cultural and political dimensions of sustainability, focusing on food production and natural resource management on the land and in the oceans. Students will learn how key historical developments led to sustainability issues, how geopolitics perpetuates these in the modern world, and how an understanding of these issues can help us to develop more sustainable ways to live in future. Learning will be achieved through lectures and videos, independent study and classroom discussion sessions.

This module provides students with the opportunity to develop their knowledge of topical issues in modern ecology. Students will be introduced, through lectures, independent reading, discussion and problem solving to a core set of topical questions in pure and/or applied ecology, and they will explore how data and theory combine to inform our understanding of these topics. Students will apply their learning by developing and critically evaluating research or management proposals that will address for specific real world ecological questions and problems.

Volcanoes are an enigmatic force of nature. Understanding the way they behave and how they are monitored is a key aspect in hazard assessment. This module will cover a range of topics related to volcano monitoring, underpinned by an overview of the current state-of-the-art in volcanic science. In particular, the module will combine a theoretical basis of understanding for ground-based and satellite-based volcano monitoring capabilities with practical applications. Via lectures, lab practicals, and field-based activities, you will benefit from hands-on operation of monitoring equipment through to processing and interpretation.

Coasts are settings in which natural processes and human activities are dynamically linked.  Whilst they  only represent a small fraction of the physical space on our planet, they are exceptionally important places due to so much societal activity being associated with them. This module explores a variety of coastal environments and associated uses of coastal space. We will focus on processes occurring within coastal environments both off-shore and on-shore and how they have and are responding to climate change. Through this, you will be able to explore how coastal change is affecting coastal societies as well as how these same societies are impacting on coastlines in terms of their processes, resilience and sustainability.  We will cover debates surrounding coastal flood protection, coastal management and coastal energy production and its security, highlighting often diverse perspectives from individuals, communities, local authorities and national and global organisations.