Welcome to the GGG Website

The Environmental Sciences area of emphasis in the discipline of geography and the graduate group has its center in physical geography. Environmental Sciences Geography is a field of geography concerned with the relationships between between the biological and physical environment, largely encompassing the subdiscipline of physical geography, but overlapping into associate natural science disciplines and engineering. Research is focused on natural and anthropogenic earth surface patterns and the physical and ecological processes that have produced them, as well as change through time and across space.

The Methods, Models, and Geographic Information Systems (MMG) area of emphasis focuses on important tools to the field of geography. This sub-discipline is chiefly concerned with the development, application and assessment of tools used in geographic research. A heavily quantitative discipline, this field aims to utilize recent advancements in technology; including computers, remote sensing and geolocation devices.

The Nature and Society Geography area of emphasis occupies a middle ground between human and physical geography. Nature and Society Geography is a field of geography concerned with the relationships between people and the environment. The field is broad and includes work from geography’s two centuries of emphasis on humankind’s interaction with and modifications of natural systems, as well as newer interests in conflicts over natural resources and environmental change; assessments of the sustainability of primary production systems like agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and mining; and critical analyses of the meanings of taken-for-granted concepts like “nature,” “natural resources,” and “degradation.”

The People, Place, and Region area of emphasis in the Geography Graduate Group encompasses political, cultural, social, and economic aspects of social science. “People, Place, and Region” is a field of geography concerned with the relationships between space and society. Encompassing many foci under the heading of human geography, this field analyzes human processes vis-à-vis the physical environment and, in particular, the ways in which people assume, require, refer to, or seek particular geographical relationships.

A number of GGG faculty and graduate students do research on global environmental change, as linked to paleoclimates, contemporary global warming, changes in ocean-atmosphere circulations, air quality, sea-level rise, biological response to climate change, and ecosystem-level impacts on watersheds, estuaries, the nearshore ocean, agriculture and urban areas.

The Concentration in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design (LAED) is an advanced research degree program focused on interdisciplinary inquiry related to landscape meaning, spatial patterns, the built environment, and environmental design.

The Concentration in Regional and Community Development (RCD) offers a Ph.D. degree program founded on the premise that strong theory and research are the basis for solving problems related to the social, economic, and political development of localities worldwide.