Departments

Geography and Geo-Information Sciences

About Us

The Department of Geography and Geo-Information Sciences is one of the five departments in the School of Environmental Sciences. The other departments of the School are: Hydrology and Water Resources; Mining and Environmental Geology; Ecology and Resource Management and Urban and Regional Planning. Within the School, the niche of the Department is its emphasis on the analysis of spatial organisation of both the human and the physical environments. The processes that influence this organisation are analysed as the basis of understanding major issues in the environment in all the disciplines relevant to the School.

The Department's major focus is spatial science providing mapping services, education and training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS), Surveying and Geomatics. The Department serves the School, the University and the northern region (Vhembe District) of the Limpopo province and South Africa as a whole.

Three-year undergraduate, Honours, Master's and Ph.D. degree programmes are offered. The main objective of the undergraduate programme is to provide students with a strong background to work as environmental and geo-information scientists. The structure of the modules that constitute the programme provide for a broad based introduction to major world environments and associated techniques in the first year. In the second year students are introduced to theoretical thrusts and methodology. In the third year students begin to specialize.  Masters and doctoral programmes are mainly geared towards research and applied work.

Students are also prepared to pursue career areas in line with the South African education policy that puts emphasis on career-oriented training and one that combines knowledge with skills training. Tourism Geography, Rural Development Planning, Population and Demography, Industrial and Settlement Studies, Applied Geomorphology, Climatology, Biogeography, Geography and Geo-Information Science are specific fields of study.