Geography, environment and planning
Welcome to Geography, Environment and Planning at Herts! We are part of the Department of Psychology Sport and Geography, within the University’s Life and Medical Sciences.
We aim to be a leading centre in teaching excellence, student experience and research, preparing our students to understand and address today’s pressing societal and environmental challenges. Our degrees span geographical and environmental fields and planning.
We host and contribute to a number of research groups, including the Smart Mobility Unit, the Ebenezer Howard School of Planning, and the Agricultural and Environment Research Unit, delivering innovative research and services with industrial, commercial and public sector partners.
Facilities
Our facilities include extensive computing and informatics resources and field equipment and are complemented by several well-equipped specialist laboratories, staffed by experts. Our remarkable environmental field centre covers a wide range of habitats spanning 40 hectares.
Geographical Information Sciences (GIS) computing facilities
The department has access to several computing laboratories complete with modern PCs and the latest GIS software. Facilities include:
- high specification PCs
- access to online mapping resources, including the Ordnance Survey
- data collection equipment, including GPS
- modern software packages, including ESRI ArcMap, QGIS and ENVI.
Geosciences laboratory
This laboratory has specialist equipment for the testing of sediments including: particle size analysis by wet sieving; basic soil properties, as well as compressibility and shear strength of soils, including both direct shear and triaxial shear testing.
Physical geography laboratory
This lab is especially designed to support students' practical learning activities in physical geography, geology, environmental sciences.
Facilities include:
- a full suite of UK Geological Maps at 1:50,000 scale
- OS 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps of England and Wales
- large collection of historic flat maps
- many specialist maps at different scales
- maps of various other countries where field work has been carried out by our staff and students.
The lab is extremely well stocked with all the major igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock types plus a fossil collection, and also contains binocular petrological microscopes for the analysis of rocks samples in thin-section.
Bayfordbury field station
Our University has its own field station which is used by our Geography and Environmental Sciences students during their degrees. The field station is situated in the Lee Valley just outside of Hertford and includes:
Our four dedicated laboratories for geographical and environmental science house field study materials and aerial photography; IT and research resources for geographical information systems (GIS) and remote sensing; equipment for testing sediments; petrological microscopes; geological maps; and a rock and fossil collection.
Our geography, environment and planning students frequently visit our rural site in Bayfordbury for regular fieldwork activities.
- onsite laboratories, teaching and GIS computing facilities
- plant growth facilities- including refurbished glasshouses and experimental plot
- 50-types of habitats, including: ancient woodlands, scrubland, hedgerows, grasslands, an ephemeral stream and lake.
- long term habitat management schemes including monitoring
- detailed species records for botany, vertebrates, terrestrial invertebrates and aquatic invertebrates
- UK and EU protected species and specialist technical staff with survey licenses
- apiary and bee keeping equipment
- weather station with records dating back to the 1980s