Geography

The course covers the various events and processes that can create natural hazards. The concept of natural hazard is defined and the history of this important field in the various natural sciences is examined. The physical causes and processes of various natural hazards are discussed. Ongoing climate change is discussed as a form of hazard, as well as the links between climate change and various weather- and climate-related events. The role of Icelandic Meteorological Office in research and monitoring of natural hazard is discussed.

In this interdisciplinary course, students are introduced to the risks, hazards, and disasters associated with the Earth’s natural environments and the growing impacts of human activity on them. Students consider the nature of hazards, disasters, risks, and how their impacts can be reduced through mitigation, protection, and adaptation. 

The course looks at the global Indo-Pacific system, area ,and politics. The Indo-Pacific space has both a geographical dimension and a geostrategic dimension. As a geographical object, this area refers to the vast sea area stretching from the South China Sea to East Africa, through the Pacific Ocean, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean and the shores of East Africa. As a geostrategic object, Indo-Pacific must be understood as the expression of an objective alliance of regional powers (Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand) seeking to promote alternatives to the Belt and Road Initiative, both in the Indian and Pacific oceans and on the Asian and African continents where China is present. As a political object, what is the name Indopacific?  The course questions these different representations of space, their political use, and the related cooperation policies, at the intersection of military and development issues.

This course provides a survey of the geography and geopolitics of Europe throughout history. It considers how Europe was created and the contents significance on a global scale.

In this course, students learn the fundamentals of spatial information, spatial querying, spatial information systems, and geometric problems involved in a spatial information system. They learn details about the spatial data formats (raster and vector), spatial relations (with particular emphasis on topological relations), spatial data structures, digital terrain modelling, geometric problems arising in spatial information systems, and algorithms to solve them. They develop a critical understanding of the different approaches to storing and manipulating spatial data: the loosely coupled approach of classical GIS versus the integrated approach of spatial database management systems. Students also analyze the Oracle Spatial object-relational model for storing and indexing spatial data. These notions complement their knowledge of other types of information systems seen in other computer science courses.

When exploring the principal rules that govern the flow of water, this course considers the four major types of water: atmospheric, ground, soil, and surface. With human activity and prevailing climate conditions placing more pressure on our supply of water than ever before, there has never been a more important time to develop a sound understanding of the subject. Students are familiarized with the basic terms and major laws that describe steady-state water flow in the subsurface and at the surface. These major laws are the energy equation (Bernoulli's law), the water balance equation (continuity), and the flow equation (Darcy's law or the Darcy-Buckingham equation). Students also gain knowledge of some aspects of atmospheric water, such as the generation of precipitation, measurement of precipitation, and the estimation of evaporation, as well as several methods for estimating surface water discharges in small streams. The ability to calculate volume fluxes and/or volume flux densities for several steady-state water-flow cases determines the successful completion of the course. Students are expected to have a working knowledge of mathematical differentiation and integration. This course is best suited for students in Hydrology, Geography, or Earth Science fields.

This course interrogates development geography as a discipline, discourse, and practice. Framed as "global development" in contemporary discourse, it traces its origins to colonialism and engages with debates in both mainstream and radical development thinking. Drawing on examples from different regions of the world, it focuses on global challenges related to migration, employment, gender, environment, digital technologies, and development finance to reflect on the changing geographies and politics of development.

In this course, students explore the debate over the onset of the Anthropocene, and the unique contribution that human geographers can make to it. Students gain a firm grasp on how the idea of the Anthropocene is re-shaping geographical thought, and encounter concepts and methods from across the field of human geography which can help us to think in new ways about the past, present, and future of human-environment relationships. 

While potential urban green space accessibility is being discussed widely, specific barriers that affect accessibility are often under-estimated. They are not equal to limited or uneven accessibility nor are they exclusively related to physical settings. Rather, the variety of barriers and their complex interactions including people’s perception, personal conditions, and institutional frames make this subject fuzzy and difficult to operationalize for planning purposes. Given the importance of barriers for decision-making of people, this class will conceptualize different barriers on realizing recreational benefits of urban green spaces within the frame of environmental justice. Studying multidimensional barriers allows for a more comprehensive understanding of individuals’ decisions in terms of accessing recreational benefits and a discussion of planning responses. Based on theoretical insights and local examples, the focus will be on qualitative and quantitative assessments methods for studying barriers, as well as on potential planning pathways for mitigating or minimizing barriers.

The course introduces Geo-Information Science and its scientific and societal interests. The starting point of the introduction is the geo-information cycle. This cycle frames geo-data-based actions like acquisition and storage, processing, and visualization. It is explained that these actions can be used to describe, analyze, design, and realize real-world phenomena. Thus geo data is always acquired, processed, and visualized with a specific purpose. This is illustrated via the conceptual, formal, and technical modeling steps. Important in these modeling steps are the roles of geographical data attributes (thematic, geometric, temporal). Because the acquisition and processing of geo data are purposive, metadata plays an important role in finding geo data and geo data processing steps. It is also important to evaluate the (re)usability of geo data and geo data processing steps. Metadata explains important geo data characteristics like (geo)reference, map projection, and available attributes. Geo-visualization, especially cartography concepts, is introduced to show how geo data ought to be communicated. After the introduction of the geo data-related concepts, the course offers geo data processing options. The latter is done by the introduction of three data handling classes (query, transform, and alter) and the data-action model. Basic concepts of Remote Sensing (spectral signature, sensor types, and visual and quantitative processing) are also introduced. The application of all concepts is practiced during a practical and a small project using professional software and data.