The goal of the Graduate Group in Geography (GGG) is to develop into a strong, nationally prominent graduate program, with emphases in the areas of biogeography, environmental and natural resource geography, tourism, and gender and geography, with associated technical strength in geographic information systems science. The overall focus of the program is on the ENVIRONMENT, building on the strengths of the campus faculty. Diverse approaches and resources are provided by our faculty in the colleges or schools of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Letters and Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, Veterinary Medicine, and Medicine. The GGG is housed within the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and its Department of Environmental Design and Landscape Architecture Program, and the GGG will in the future become a founding group in the new Graduate School of the Environment. With the faculty and student enthusiasm and abundant intellectual resources of the group, the future is promising.

The discipline of geography focuses on landscape patterns and the processes that shape them, and as such is characterized by a distinct set of perspectives (place-based understanding, spatial interactions, and scale dependence) and methods of spatial representation and analysis (NRC, 1997). Geography focuses on the organization and character of the surface of the earth, and interactions between biophysical and human processes at the surface of the earth. As a cross-cutting discipline, geographers often attempt to transcend the boundaries traditionally separating the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities in order to provide a broad-based analysis of selected phenomena (NRC, 1997). Geography is an appropriate home for study of many critical issues facing society, including global climatic change, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, land-use change, globalization of the economy, effects of globalization on local places and peoples, and impacts of the technological revolution.

An important influence on the discipline has been the development and spread of geographic information systems (GIS) in the 1980s and 1990s, with this science led by geographers and evolving from the fields of cartography and spatial analysis and modeling. GIS has revolutionized our ability to address complex and often regional-scale problems (particularly environmental problems), by improving the management, analysis, and display of spatial data. Geography is arguably the major, but not the only, home of GIS instruction and research in U. S. universities.

Faculty interests in the GGG are diverse, and attract as great of a diversity of students in such areas as biophysical geography and related natural science and engineering fields, as well as human geography and related social science fields. A number of faculty members use and teach geographic information systems, remote sensing, and related geographic techniques, and the faculty have a strong field orientation as well (a tradition in geography). This range of academic interests is typical of strong graduate programs in geography at other universities in the United States. However, the strengths of the campus and its faculty enable the program to focus on several areas of emphasis in geography where faculty expertise and student interest is the greatest. We are currently developing a new graduate course and lists of suggested coursework for each of these specializations. These areas are listed below.

Biogeography

Biogeography embraces ecological (biomes, vegetation formations), historical, and evolutionary approaches. Historical biogeography can focus on multispecies assemblages, lineages, or individual taxa of plants or animals. Current research at UC Davis often focuses on the interface of historical biogeography and systematics or community dynamics, and on phylogeography (the geographic patterning of population genetics, usually using molecular markers) - including comparative phylogeographic studies of multiple taxa in the same areas as an approach to reconstructing community or biotic evolution. Many of these studies have conservation implications.

Environmental Resource Geography

UC Davis is one of the nation's strongest centers of environmental resource scholarship. This area has been a historical strength of the GGG both in physical and human geographic domains. The group's particular strength in this area is in bringing contemporary approaches and ideas from other disciplines into geography, where they can be applied, synthesized, and modeled in more of a spatial context. Current research includes studies of water resource allocation, stream restoration, air quality, land use and transportation issues, alternative agricultural cropping and production methods, ecological and agricultural sustainability, and behavioral studies.

Gender and Geography

Gender and geography takes gender as a key variable in influencing spatial patterns. Topics studied include gender and landscape perception, gender and participation in and enjoyment of tourism, gender and development, gendered roles in agriculture, and gendered use of space. Faculty and students are involved in the Center for Gender and Global Issues, with a diversity of research projects on-going around the world, with most students doing research abroad.

Tourism and Geography

There are a number of opportunities to study tourism geography at UC Davis. Faculty with regional specializations can advise students undertaking descriptive studies of the interplay between landscape, organized support systems for tourists, and articulations of the tourist economy with traditional economic activities (e.g., subsistence agriculture). Students may wish to undertake GIS, spatial geographic, or other modeling of relationships among tourist flows, distributions of amenities and attractions, and other phenomena. Our strength in environmental studies permits students to explore hypotheses about the interplay of tourism development and plant and animal populations in specific regions (e.g., "eco-tourism"). The GGG faculty in the social sciences can advise advanced research on the social and cultural effects of the interactions of tourists and local peoples. There is advice available for theoretical studies of the ways tourism challenges assumptions about "space" and "place" in human geography: e.g, definitions of "boundary," relations of cultural pattern to "place," "power," "the gaze," etc.

Landscape Architecture

The presence of the Geography Graduate Group in the landscape architecture program enables students to study landscape patterns that arise from the interaction of people and the environment, as well as issues arising from that interaction. Students in this concentration may focus on design and planning at advanced levels and take graduate seminars offered by the landscape architecture program in landscape theory and methods, as well as specialty courses. The faculty in landscape architecture offers expertise in many different areas within and related to the field of landscape architecture, including landscape history and theory, urban design, community participation, ecological design, landscape restoration, and historic preservation.

GIS Science

Although not a separate area of emphasis, as many of our students and faculty use GIS in a wide diversity of research inquiries, GIS science is a cross-cutting area of strength for the group. Geographic information systems have increased our ability to address complex and often regional-scale problems (particularly environmental problems), by improving our ability to collect, manage, analyze and display data that are spatially located. GIS and related techniques (especially remote sensing, spatial statistics, and geographic visualization) have coalesced into a new subfield called geographic information science (GIScience; see Goodchild, 1992). The GGG has great strength is this area, with several faculty heavily involved in GIS and remote sensing research and teaching, and leading both research centers on campus (such as ICE and CSTAR), the development and testing of new sensors, and the application of new methodologies to solving small to large-scale agricultural and environmental problems.

With the many environmental and societal issues a growing California faces, and the proximity to state and federal agencies in Sacramento, applied research topics and funding are extensive, both for California place-based projects and research abroad. The Graduate Group in Geography is well positioned to make important contributions to basic geographic theory and the solution of environmental problems in California, the nation, and abroad.

References:

• Goodchild, M.F., 1992. Geographical information science. International Journal of Geographical Information Systems 6: 31-45.
• NRC (Rediscovering Geography Committee, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, National Research Council), 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington DC: National Academy Press.