Volcanology and the Environment MSc drafted

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This module is taken by all master's students. This is a piece of research carried out with one-to-one supervision from either a member of LEC staff or one of our research partner organisations or sometimes both. Students can choose their own project (subject to agreement), choose a project from a list published by the department, or can apply for a project in conjunction with an external company.

This module aims to provide you with knowledge of volcanoes and volcanic systems. Its foundations are an understanding of the properties and behaviour of volcanic materials gained through laboratory, theoretical and field study. The module emphasizes the widely-applicable physical and chemical processes that occur during volcanic activity, including variations in solubility, rheology, phase, density and permeability. The interaction of volcanic processes with the biosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere are discussed. The products of volcanism, together with the hazard and benefits to life on Earth are studied.

The module aims to train students to Master's level in guided, but self-determined research planning. For the the subject area of their research project, they will have: familiarity with the broader and specific literature;researched appropriate methodologies; developed a research plan; presented the findings in poster and written formats.

After an introduction to the importance and timeliness of civilisation - as both concept and reality - and 'ecological civilisation' in particular, the course will proceed to explore, first, multiple definitions and dimensions of civilisation and, secondly, various accounts of the dynamics of civilisation(s). The first part of the course will thus include consideration of both material and ideational aspects of civilisation, as well as it normative 'light' and 'dark' sides,and issues of the 'more-than-cognitive' that particularly speak to a concern for ‘civilisation’ (vs., say, terms relating to modern social science disciplines such as ‘society’, ‘economy’, ‘polity’). The second part of the course will explore evidence regarding the rise and fall of civilisation(s) and what may be learned regarding ‘where we are today' in trajectories of civilisation and what we could do in response.

This module aims to explore and reconfigure the ways in which climate change is understood through a focus on the social, rather than the scientific-environmental discourses that have dominated the policy and politics of climate change. This module give you a wide-ranging and intensive introduction to the politics, cultures and theories of climate change research in the social sciences and humanities. You will be able to critically evaluate different theoretical perspectives on a range of climate change debates and present alternative arguments.

This module will provide you with a broad view of issues related to contaminated land, in particular: typical contamination problems; methodologies for assessing the extent and seriousness of contamination; and the applicability and effectiveness of remediation techniques as a function of contamiNAt and site conditions.

The legislation pertaining to and the processes used to assess the risk associated with contaminated land will be appraised, as will risk-based approaches to contaminated land assessment in general. The fate and behaviour of contamiNAts in the environment will also be examined. Students will gain knowledge in these matters via the risk assessment and remediation case studies.

An awareness of the scale of contaminated land in the UK will be acquired, and students will gain the ability to scientifically discuss the processes which control the behaviour of chemicals in soil.

This module focuses on data processing and visualisation to support dissertation work, and will provide students with advanced scientific numeracy skills. It includes introductory elements of MATLAB and Simulink, the industry standard for programming language, and students will learn to design, modify, run and debug simple MATLAB programs. They will be able to adapt the skills learnt to other programming languages such as Fortran and C.

Students will be taught the main programming elements, such as data input, processing, output in numerical and graphical forms, programming tools and structures (loops, conditional statements and other flow control).The module also introduces selected principles of dynamic systems analysis such as transfer functions applied to environmental systems in the form of examples and case studies.

Coursework will include writing brief MATLAB scripts based on the scripts used during workshops, as well as an essay on selected problems of environmental systems modelling linked with these scripts. Tests will be taken which will involve writing code snippets related to simple numerical and graphical problems.

Current approaches to cutting-edge research in the environmental sciences are highly dependent on digital data, and a wide variety of different data types can now be accessed relatively easily. You only need to consider the data required to understand climate change to appreciate the diversity of information that is currently available, and which is needed to address the biggest global issues.

In this module you will learn the fundamentals of retrieving, annotating, analysing and interpreting digital data from a variety of sources, applying integrated, scientific methodologies. You will develop data manipulation skills and an awareness of the tools available to maximise the value of heterogeneous digital data. We demonstrate everyday problems in data collection, both avoidable and unavoidable, and explore techniques that minimise their impact. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of current software for data mining and visualisation, and you will get hands-on experience of data integration using spreadsheet, database and GIS technologies.

This module provides a grounding in statistics and data analysis for non-mathematicians, by starting with the basics then developing the skills required to successfully analyse data generated through dissertation projects.

Students will familiarise themselves with the open-source statistical package 'R' for analysis. The materials covered include describing data, producing figures, comparing differences between groups, correlation and associations, regression analysis and experimental design.

The module also provides a brief overview of methods beyond the module to provide awareness and a direction for further progress.

*This is a distance learning module and not taught on Campus*

Students will gain a critical understanding of key concepts, principles, tools and techniques for the management of natural resources and the environment. Particular attention is given to the challenges of dealing with complexity, change, uncertainty and conflict in the environment, and to the different management approaches which can be deployed in ‘turbulent’ conditions.

Contemporary environmental problems will be examined and interpreted from both an academic and policy perspective. In order to do this effectively, students will learn to evaluate and critique arguments and evidence related to environmental problems, and will demonstrate advanced understanding of alternative management concepts through constructive debate.

This module introduces students to the fundamental principles of GIS and remote sensing and explores how these complimentary technologies may be used to capture, manipulate, analyse and display different forms of spatially-referenced environmental data. This is a highly vocational module with lectures complimented by computer-based practicals (using state-of-the-art software such as ArcGIS Pro and ENVI) on related themes. At the end of the module students are required to complete a project in which a functioning analytical environmental information system is designed and implemented in order to solve a specific problem.

Taking a broad look at geological hazards, this module will cover everything from contemporary events to those that have shaped the Earth over geological time. The module explores in depth the fundamental processes involved in these events and how and to what extent such events can be predicted. Case histories of national and international disasters will be used to illustrate these hazards, and the inherent risks and potential mitigation measures will be discussed.

A demonstration and elaboration of the geological processes responsible for the occurrence, recurrence and magnitude of hazards will be given. Students will also learn to apply and report on the methods of prediction and mitigation strategies of geological hazards, and will apply simple prediction scenarios of geological hazard occurrence using geological datasets.To this end, students will develop skills in integrating sparse quantitative measurements and qualitative observations in order to derive interpretations from relevant datasets.

The module underscores far-reaching concepts such as using the past to inform the future and environmental risk. It will ultimately develop a sense of human-place in the geological world, promoting an understanding of how the geological world impacts human society, and what can be done to limit that impact.

The aim of this module is to introduce the concept of the Earth system and how the different components (atmosphere, ocean, ice and ecosystems) all interact with each other to shape the Earth's climate and control how the climate might change. The module will cover issues related to recent climate change, including natural and human drivers of the change. It will introduce the computer models and global observation networks that scientists use to understand the Earth system. It will also discuss the role of atmospheric chemistry and climate in the Earth system, including issues related to air quality, greenhouse gases and aerosols.

Overall, this module aims to provide an introduction to the physical processes which influence global climate change, leading to a better understanding of Earth system science.

Students will cultivate an appreciation of the scale and variety of groundwater resources within the UK and overseas. The vulnerability of these resources and the various procedures and challenges for the implementation of policies for their protection will also be a major focus during this module.

The module will introduce the principles of groundwater flow and transport for which both physical and mathematical aspects of groundwater systems need to be discussed. Use will be made of computer models to solve practical problems relevant to the water industry. The students will also gain hands-on experience of groundwater investigation methods in the field.

Those who take this module will learn to apply a specific groundwater model (MODFLOW) to a number of problems, after considering the different methods that are widely used for investigating groundwater systems. Students will then learn to state the limitations of such models for practical use and will numerically evaluate the model results that they gather.

This module will ultimately impart the skills needed to prepare reports for a Head of Section as if working for an organisation such as the Environment Agency.

This module provides an introduction to basic principles and approaches to computer-aided modelling of environmental processes with applications to real environmental problems such as catchment modelling, pollutant dispersal in rivers and estuaries and population dynamics. Emphasis is placed on the use of computer-based methods and practical examples and you will be introduced to general aspects of environmental systems modelling.

Having a basic level of numerical skill is required in order to perform well in many LEC PGT modules. This module provides baseline numerical, statistical and mathematical skills to underpin academic modules and as an employability skill in its own right.

This module has no credits and no formal assessment. It is taught online and students work through at their own pace.

This module will allow you to improve your practical and theoretical knowledge of volcanic processes through a residential field course held on an active basaltic volcano. We start off with classroom sessions to introduce the field site and provide insight into some of the magmatic and tectonic processes involved. Then, in the field, you will visit key localities and unravel the complex links between magma properties and eruptive style. We will examine effusive (lavas) and explosive (tephra) products, and will discuss and observe the roles of dykes, fissures and conduits at first hand. The module is usually held on Mount Etna, Sicily, although the location may change in future years.