Geography

This course examines Socio-ecologies in 1491; Spanish colonialism and biological imperialism; contemporary coloniality and neoliberalism; and social movements.

This course introduces students to the basic principles of spatial analysis. Students learn how to use spatial analysis methods and fundamental spatial algorithms for a variety of applications in human and physical geography. The course is structured along the two spatial data representations, vector data, and raster data. Students learn to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to perform the analysis.

This course examines the urban fact in the state of Rio de Janeiro as a category for analyzing the organization of Rio de Janeiro's space. It discusses the city of Rio de Janeiro and its metropolization, the organization of the internal space of the city of Rio de Janeiro, the rural and the urban, the countryside and the metropolis: singularities in Rio de Janeiro. The course also highlights the structure of political, economic, cultural, and social powers in Rio de Janeiro today. It considers planning and management of the state's productive spaces; the dynamism of Rio de Janeiro: heyday, decline, and emergence; and environmental issues in Rio de Janeiro.

This course provides an introduction to the study of biogeography. Bridging the fields of ecology and geography, biogeography is the study of the spatial patterns of biological diversity and its causes. Students identify how historical, physical, and biological factors affect present and past distributions of individuals, species, populations, communities, and ecosystems. The actions of humans are a critical force impacting other species, and the human influence on past, present and future species distributions is a central topic in this module.

This course introduces the issues associated with demographic growth, which has accelerated very significantly over the last half century to soon reach eight billion individuals today. It covers the issues of population geography which vary around inequalities in the distribution and evolution of the population; the challenges of sometimes too rapid growth in the urban population; and the consequences of increased life expectancy. The course studies new societal behaviors to decipher the issues associated with the evolution of pronatalist and matrimonial behaviors. Population migrations, although they are no longer the source of new settlements, constitute a major aspect of this course, and are examined under demographic, societal, and political facets. Finally, the course examines the environmental consequences.

The course provide an introduction to concepts and principles of remote sensing. It will include 3 components: 1) radiometric principles underlying remote sensing: electromagnetic radiation; basic laws of electromagnetic radiation; absorption, reflection and emission; atmospheric effects; radiation interactions with the surface, radiative transfer; 2) assumptions and trade-offs for particular applications: orbital mechanics and choices; spatial, spectral, temporal, angular and radiometric resolution; data pre-processing; scanners; and 3) time- resolved remote sensing including: RADAR principles; the RADAR equation; RADAR resolution; phase information and SAR interferometry; and LIDAR remote sensing, the LIDAR equation and applications.

In this inter-disciplinary course, (designed for students of geography, environmental science, ecology, and international development who have an interest in biodiversity and its conservation), students focus on the interactions between biodiversity and human societies. The course adopts a rigorous evidence-based approach. Students first critically examine the human drivers of biodiversity loss and the importance of biodiversity to human society, to understand how underlying perspectives and motivations influence approaches to conservation. They then examine conflicts between human society and conservation and how these potentially can be resolved, reviewing institutions and potential instruments for biodiversity conservation in both Europe and developing countries. 

Incorporating the human security discourse into sustainable development, this course focuses on four themes representing overarching approaches for developing sustainability solutions, whose interests they represent, and their implications on the "individual" as the referent object of security and sustainable development. Engaging the human security components allows students to understand the implications of sustainable development, or lack thereof, on the people whose development is to be sustained. Through critical interrogation of approaches to the sustainable development, this course explores the benefits and trade-offs implicit in different dimensions of sustainability and their implications. The course builds on the core material of SD1000 and SD1004.

This course provides an introduction to political and economic geography. The course advances two key arguments, namely that politics and the economy are (1) tightly intertwined and (2) innately geographical phenomenon. It explores how politics, the economy, and the environment are constituted through different sets of actors and their interrelationships. It mobilizes core geographical concepts, notably place, space, scale and territory, along with notions of power and resistance, to offer a distinctive perspective on processes of uneven development in the contemporary world.

The course introduces students to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) using both the current industry standard software, and the increasing number of web-based geographical tools. The course provides a theoretical background that enables students to look critically at the subject while providing them with practical skills in using these tools. Students gain direct experience of a range of data collection, data capture, database, analytical, and visualization techniques.