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Department of Geography

 

Annual Report 2001: Graduate school 2000 – 2001

Review by the Director

The 2000 – 2001 year saw the Graduate School maintain its position as one of the largest MPhil/PhD training programmes in Geography in the UK. Seventeen PhDs were awarded, as well as thirty-two MPhil degrees across the three programmes of Environment and Development, GIS and Remote Sensing and Quaternary Science. In addition, an M.Phil was established in Geographical Research, intended as a first year training and preparation for the PhD. This was formally intiated in 2001, with the first students ariving in 2002. Fomal ESRC recognition was gained for the MPhils in Environmental Development, GIS and Geographical Research. Our students continue to achieve excellent job placements across the academic world, industry, research and government agencies. The list of topics testifies to the breadth and depth of the Department’s research base.

The process of administering this wide range of activity would be impossible without the help of many people; 273 applications were processed in 2000 – 2001, and 46 students admitted. This burden falls heavily onto the Graduate School Office, staffed by Elisabeth Burmeister until September 2001. Considerable thanks for her efforts. The administration process also relies heavily on the directors of each MPhil and on the Degree Committee, to whom the Department owes a great debt.

During 2001, the Graduate Training Programme was redesigned and an integrated MPhil/PhD Handbook produced for the first time. The Graduate Training Programme is now formally developed in conjunction with other Social Science Departments for human geography, and discussions are underway to work more closely with Earth Sciences and other departments of physical geography. A major development has been the strong participation of geography in the Social Science Research Methods training course, develped for ESRC recognition purposes, and presently directed by Professor R J Bennett.

Over the year changes to the organisation of PhD student rooms were intiated to improve their IT resources and bring students more closely into the department’s main research groups.

Professor R J Bennett
Director of the Graduate School
August 2002

Graduate School Statistics

MPhils

MPhil Year Applications Offers Admitted Pass Fail
Environment and Development 1999-2000 160 52 14 14 0
2000-2001 160 31 18 18 0
Geograpical Information Systems and Remote Sensing 1999-2000 71 49 11 11 0
2000-2001 44 15 12 12 0
Quaternary Science 1999-2000 14 8 7 7 0
2000-2001 10 6 2 2 0

Research Student Applications And Admissions

Year Applications Offers Admitted
October 2000 52 20 15
October 2001 88 33 18

Dissertation Titles 2000 – 2001

MPhil in Environment and Development

Name Dissertation Title
Collier, Ms J The Arctic Council: issue linkage in a regional environment and development organisation
Cowan, Ms C Game preservation or nature conservation? The move towards National Parks in colonial East Africa
Edmunds, Ms M Examininng the effect of community strategies on the environmental policy and process of the Local Agenda 21 scheme in Britain.
Fell, Mr C Community forestry in South Africa: a case study
Gannon, Ms S Privatisation of the Irish gas and electricity sectors and living up to Kyoto commitments: will greater economic efficiency help?
Graham, Mr M Implications of human land use and settlement patterns for elephant conservation
Grahn, Mr R Sustaining livelihoods through reducing vulnerability to extreme natural events
Johnson, Mr A Water resource conservation in the UK: a case study investigation into success of intervention to alleviate low river flows
Kumar, Mr A Impact of integrated watershed development project on sustainable livelihoods – an India case study
Laity, Mr D The health status of Palestinian refugees: the impacts of levels of social conflict over time
Maclean, Ms K The role of local knowledge in participatory natural resource management: practice or rhetoric
Mbithi, Ms C The 1998-2000 drought: a case study of vulnerability and coping mechanisms of rural communities in Konza and Kaputei settlements, Kenya
Mital, Mr R Rural renewable energy: an Indian case study
Naidoo, Ms S Official development assistance to South Africa 1994-2000 – towards a South-African led process
Omambia, Ms A Sanitation in urban slums: perceptions, atitudes and behaviour – a case study of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
Peeks, Ms H An ethnographic investgation of current perceptions of Africa
Pradhan Mr M Eco-tourism – reality or rhetoric: a case study of Annapurna conservation area
Reinhard, Mr M When climatic changes shape new landscapes: socio-economic adaptations in the Swiss Alps

MPhil in Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing

Name Dissertation Title
Aryal, Mr A An optical and SAR remote sensing investigation of Alayta Volcano, Ethiopia
Caine, Ms S Photogrammetric monitoring of a small experimental basin
Katz, Mr I Y Integrated GIS and HIV/AIDS prevalence, population and sexual behaviour in Uganda for investigating the reason of the HIV declines
Keith, Mr A A geological intepretation of the Tebesti Volcanic province, Nothern Chad, based on remote sensed data
Kendall, Ms C Vegetation change deduction in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, using remote sensed imagery from 1972 – 2000
Koirala, Ms S Visualisation and validation of digital sensing elevation model (DEM) in the study of coastal geomorphology
Lee, Mr P Y Object orientated geospatial data modelling for multi-disciplinary GIS
Merlo, Ms S 3D GIS implementation for the recording of historic buildings
Otoo, Mr E Spatio-temporal analysis of urban growth using GIS and remote sensing techniques
Simbiwen, Mr T Using remotely sensed Landsat TM data and GIS in mapping landcover and agricultural productivity potential in the Wosera area of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea
Witham, Ms C Volcanic erutions through crater lakes and resultant Lahar formation: a simple model using GIS for Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand

MPhil in Quaternary Science

Name Dissertation Title
Bennett, Ms J Pleistocene deposits in the Portsmouth area: an investigation into their chronology and the correlation with neighbouring areas
Speller, Mr G Palaeoenvironmental analysis of a colluvial sequence from a Roman villa and Rock, Brighstone, Isle of Wight

PhD Degrees Awarded 2000 – 2001

Name Dissertation Title
Allard, Ms D J The sub alpine fir forest zone of Lamjung Himal, Nepal: vegetation types, forest dynamics and human impacts
Babejova, Ms E Space, politics and identity in Bratislava, 1867-1914
Bratton, Mr W SMEs and local economic development
Cameron, Ms L J Anthropogenic natures: Wicken Fen and histories of disturbance (1923-1943)
Gitas, Mr I Geographical information systems and remote sensing in mapping and monitoring fire-altered landscapes
Glaister, Mr C G Palynology of late pleistocene marine sediments in North Jutland
Herman, Mr W M The re-suspension of fine sediment by estuarine waves: implications for managed retreat flood defences
Hyams, Ms M The spaces of adolescent latina gender identities
Johnson, Mr N P A S Aspects of the historical geography of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in Britain
Jones, Mr A M Deconstructing globalism: an investigation in the nature of transitional business activity in the investment banking and management consultancy industries
Karlekar, Mr I Liberalisation in India: foreign investment in the autos sector
Lau, Mr S S Statistical and dynamical systems investgation of shallow lake eutrophication
Perkins, Mr E W The spatial dynamics of the transmission of communicable disease in displaced and refugee populations
O’Beirne-Ranelagh, Ms E G Biodiversity and horse grazing: The ecology and management of pastures in Cambridgeshire in relation to fertiliser use
Tabone-Adami, Ms E GIS based modelling of nutrient transfers from land to coastal waters for understanding eutrophication patterns
Tarras-Wahlberg, Mr N H Metal contamination, water quality and environmental policy
Watson, Mr I M Remote sensing of tropospheric volcanic plumes
Wiart, Mr P A M Quaternary volcanism in North-East Africa

Departmental Seminar Programme 2001

18 January Professor J Powell (Monash University, Australia) ‘Colonial Translations: Peasants and Parsons in Nineteenth-Century Australia’
25 January Professor S Whatmore (University of Bristol) ‘Transgressing Objectivity: the disorderly space of GM foods’
1 February Professor G Wadge (University of Reading) ‘Remote Measurement of Evaporation from Playas’
8 February Professor M Bravo (Scott Polar Research Institute) ‘From Geography to Anthropology: rethinking the Social Origins of the Seasons’
22 February Dr M Hulme (University of East Anglia) ‘Climate Change Risk and Sustainability’
1 March Professor I Reid (Loughborough University) ‘Unpredictable yet predictable – desert geomorphological processes’
8 March Dr D Brockington (University of Cambridge) ‘Commons and Corruption, Village Resource Management in Tanzania’
15 March Dr K Willis (University of Liverpool) ‘Gendering Trans national Communities: Singaporena and British Expatriates in China’
26 April Dr P French (Royal Holloway, University of London) ‘Managed Coastal Retreat’
3 May Dr D Scott (University of Natal, Durban) ‘Environmental Identity and Social Transformation: Experiences from South Durban, South Africa’
10 May Dr E Mawdsley (University of Durham) ‘Getting a voice in the Global Development – information knowledge and ideas’
17 May Professor M Heffernan (University of Nottingham) ‘History, Geography and the French National Space: The Question of Alsace-Lorraine, 1914-1918’
11 October Dr J Duncan (University of Cambridge) ‘Another country: Latino labour and the politics of disappearance in a New York suburb’
18 October Professor PAUL Williams (University of Auckland) ‘Reconstructing climate change: Palaeoclimate records from New Zealand speleothems and implications for interhemispherical synchronicity’
25 October Dr M Durham (University of Durham) ‘Urban morphology but not as we know it: the shape of electronic space’
1 November Dr B Walter (Anglian Polytechnic University) ‘Whiteness, hybridity and the Irish diaspora’
8 November Dr D Gilvear (University of Stirling) ‘Fluvial processes and riparian habitat diversity on wandering gravel bed rivers’
15 November Dr C Barnett (University of Bristol) ‘Media transformation and ‘The politics of shame’ in South Africa’
22 November Dr M Storper (London School of Economics) ‘The economic geography of the internet age’
29 November Dr H Southall (University of Portsmouth) ‘Redefining the national memory: the Great Britain historical GIS project’