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Earth Systems Science

The Department of Geography offers graduate work at the Ph.D. level for students interested in taking courses and conducting research in Environmental Systems and Physical Geography.

This graduate program focuses on advanced courses and research in:

  • Biogeography (forest, conservation and landscape ecology, land cover change),

  • Soils (morphology, pedomorphology, agriculture, drainage, salinization, pollution problems, and land development, erosion),

  • Geomorphology (river channel forms and processes, drainage basin morphometry, and hillslope hydraulic processes), and

  • Environmental Assessment (ecohydrology, earth system science, landscape modeling and assessment with GIS and remote sensing).

Research and Teaching Facilities

The departmental facilities include four laboratories for coursework and research in:

The Biogeography Laboratory contains equipment to support tree-ring and fossil pollen analyses of forest and landscape ecology. The equipment for fossil pollen analysis includes a Livingstone piston corer, a mini-Glew surface sampler, and a Nikon Labophot microscope. The equipment for tree-ring analyses includes increment borers from 12" to 40" in length, and a Velmex-based tree-ring measurement system.

The department possesses a large Geomorphology Laboratory designed to study the hydraulics and erosion mechanics of overland flow. The laboratory contains two flumes and a rainfall simulator. This facility is intended primarily for graduate student and faculty research.

In addition, the department just reopened a new research laboratory for Landscape-based Environmental System Analysis & Modeling (LESAM). The former soils laboratory allows students to conduct field research including various soil testing experiments in the field and in the lab. The new facilities include an experimental computational platform and database that integrates environmental models with GIS to analyze and model landscape processes.

The Geographic Information and Analysis Lab (GIAL) is a multipurpose computing facility shared by the Department of Geography and the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). The laboratory supports the teaching and research needs of student and faculty with site licenses of various GIS, remote sensing and environmental modeling software packages, such as ArcGIS, ArcView, ERDAS, ILWIS, and PCRaster. In addition there are limited number of computers with environmental software for natural resources management and conservation, assessment of processes in earth systems, landscape ecology, soils, geomorphology, and hydrology.

Further field measurement equipment includes a sophisticated electromagnetic current meter, four Price Type AA and Pygmy current meters, a stage recorder, four bed load and suspended sediment samplers, a turbidity meter, and a prefab bridge. In addition, there are a variety of surveying instruments, such as theodolites, transits, automatic levels, and Abney levels.

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training Requirement

All students initially admitted to a Ph.D. program for the Fall 2009 semester or thereafter are required to document successful completion of "Responsible Conduct of Research" (RCR) training when they submit their Application to Candidacy (ATC) for their Ph.D. degree. This training requirement may be fulfilled by either (1.) enrolling in and passing PHI 640 Graduate Research Ethics or RPN 541 Ethics and Conduct of Research or (2.) completing the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) online Responsible Conduct of Research course with an average score of 80% or higher. Students opting to complete the CITI online course must supply documentation of its successful completion with their Application to Candidacy http://www.grad.buffalo.edu/policies/phd.php#conduct .

 

Graduate course requirements

While the detailed course sequence will be worked out for each graduate student, usually nine to twelve credits are taken during the first term and are selected from the following courses

 

Required Courses

GEO 500 Introduction to Graduate Geography (3)
GEO 501 Research Design (1)
GEO 505 Univariate Statistics in Geography (4)

Elective Courses

GEO 515 Conservation Biogeography
GEO 544 Environmental Change
GEO 547 Advanced Earth Systems Science
GEO 549 Fluvial Geomorphology
GEO 561 Ecohydrology
GEO 570 Integrated Watershed Management
GEO 575 Landscape Modeling with GIS

GEO 506 Geographic Information Systems
GEO 553 Remote Sensing
GEO 559 GIS & Environmental Modeling
GEO 591 Intro to GIScience
GEO 594 Geographic Information and Society
GEO 595 Database Design for GIS
GEO 597 Geostatistics
GEO 605 Spatial Statistics
GEO 655 Advanced Topics in GIS

Admission Requirements

Faculty and Main Specialties

Sean Bennett, Professor: Sediment transport and gully erosion, seanb@buffalo.edu

Chris Larsen, Associate Professor: Landscape ecology/vegetation dynamics, larsen@buffalo.edu

Scott Mackay, Professor: Ecohydrology and land surface hydrology, dsmackay@buffalo.edu

Chris Renschler, Associate Professor: GIScience & environmental modeling, rensch@buffalo.edu


Department of Geography University at Buffalo