BACHELOR OF SCIENCE HONOURS GEOGRAPHY AND LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY (HGLE)
| Module Code | Module Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| HGLE100 | Geographical Thinking and Practice | This module introduces students to theory and practice in geography, focusing in particular on relationships between geographical concepts and the practices of geographic science. Students are exposed to a full range of geographic concepts with the aim of improving their ability to develop and clarify research questions in geographical sciences, develop scientific writing skills and help them to design fieldwork, collect data and analyze it. In addition, the course focuses on the history of geographical thought and understanding of how these historical developments have influenced geographic methods. The last section of the course provides students with an understanding of the impacts of key global environmental changes occurring in different parts of the world. |
| HGLE101 | Geographical Information Science | The module introduces students to the principles and applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Principles covered in this include: map projections, GPS, spatial representation, visualization and spatial analysis. The theoretical concepts presented in lectures provide knowledge needed to use GIS software effectively and correctly while laboratory exercises are meant to familiarize students with GIS software. |
| HGLE104 | Remote Sensing | This module introduces students to the principles of remote sensing and image processing and their applications in natural resource management, agriculture and vegetation assessments. It details the science and applications of remote Sensing. Further, the course describes the principles of image interpretation and classification. |
| HGLE105 | Landscape Processes and Pattern Analysis | All geographic data have a spatial component attached to them e.g., crimes are committed at certain locations and diseases and species are distributed unevenly across geographic space. Conventional procedures of data analysis do not make use of this important spatial information and this tends to limit our understanding of processes operating in space and time. The primary goal of this course is to teach students the theory and practical applications of methods used in spatial data analysis. In this course, different methods for exploring and analysing spatial patterns are explained using different worked examples drawn from a wide range of spatial data sets. Three types of spatial data will be covered i.e., point patterns, area-referenced (lattice) data and spatial data coming from measurements of continuous processes. |
| HGLE103 | Principles of Landscape Ecology | The landscape ecology principles in seven spheres. The principles of the structure and function, biodiversity, flow of organism species,redistribution of nutriments, flow of energy, landscape changes and stability. From the general principles we can infer also the special landscape ecological principles. They came out from the first general principle contained the landscape structure and functions: the patches, edges or borders, corridors, mosaics, porosity, network and matrix. The aim of this course is to give students a firm grasp of the concepts of landscape ecology and of how these concepts can be applied to manage resources distributed unevenly across landscape units. The landscape concept. Importance of scale, pattern and process. Ecological mechanisms and landscape ecology. |
| HGLE106 | Human Ecology | It involves the spatial and temporal interrelationships between humans and their economic, social and natural environment. The course involves an understanding of human activities have shaped different ecosystems |
| HGLE102 | Plant Biodiversity and Animal diversity | Biodiversity is under threat from various processes including land use changes, habitat destruction, alien species invasion and climate change. The aim of the course is to demonstrate to students the need to sustainably use and protect the variety and variability of biological resources at species, ecosystem and gene levels. In this course, students acquire theoretical knowledge and practical skills useful for measuring and conserving biodiversity. |
| HGLE107 |
Plant and Animal Evolution |
The module involves organic and inorganic evolution of species. The course focuses on the drivers of evolution and the main stages in animal and plant evolution. |
| HGLE201 |
Environmental Systems Analysis |
Environmental Systems Analysis tries ways to apply technology systems solutions to environmental problems. Environmental systems analysis creates frameworks for analysis, methods, and tools that can be applied to a variety fields. The primary goal of this course is to teach students environmental systems analysis. The target students are those interested in pursuing careers in Geographic information science applications. The course will use computer-based laboratory exercises to complement and reinforce theoretical concepts from the lectures and cover application of skills to different case studies. |
| HGLE204 |
Landscape limnology |
Landscape limnology is the spatially explicit study of lakes, streams, and wetlands as they interact with freshwater, terrestrial, and human landscapes to determine the effects of pattern on ecosystem processes across temporal and spatial scales. Limnology is the study of inland water bodies inclusive of rivers, lakes, and wetlands; landscape limnology seeks to integrate all of these ecosystem types. The terrestrial component represents spatial hierarchies of landscape features that influence which materials, whether solutes or organisms, are transported to aquatic systems; aquatic connections represent how these materials are transported; and human activities reflect features that influence how these materials are transported as well as their quantity and temporal dynamics. Therefore, the four main themes of landscape limnology are: Patch characteristics, Patch context, Patch connectivity and directionality and Spatial scale and hierarchy. |
| HGLE207 |
Landscape disturbance and fragmentation |
Land change modelling is an application of landscape ecology designed to predict future changes in land use. Land change models are used in urban planning, geography, GIS, and other disciplines to gain a clear understanding of the course of a landscape. From a patch dynamics perspective, populations, communities, ecosystems, and landscapes may all be studied effectively as mosaics of patches that differ in size, shape, composition, history, and boundary characteristics. The idea of patch dynamics dates back to the 1940s when plant ecologists studied the structure and dynamics of vegetation in terms of the interactive patches that it comprises. A mathematical theory of patch dynamics was developed originally to describe the pattern and dynamics of an intertidal community as a patch mosaic created and maintained by tidal disturbances. Patch dynamics is a conceptual approach to ecosystem and habitat analysis that emphasizes dynamics of heterogeneity within a system (i.e. that each area of an ecosystem is made up of a mosaic of small 'sub-ecosystems'). Landscape fragmentation, connectivity, and hierarchy. Landscape structure and function. Modelling landscape structure. Spatial heterogeneity. |
| HGLE206 |
Ecological Modelling |
Ecosystems are complex systems. To understand them, ecological models are useful for simulating and analyzing the long-term dynamics and stability properties of complex ecological systems. The aim of the course is to introduce different modelling approaches, and to give you the skills for constructing and analysing ecological models. |
| HGLE203 |
Physiological Ecology |
Landscape ecology relies on correlations among landscape and population/community parameters but usually ignores individual-level mechanisms. Evolutionary and ecological physiology, in contrast, is mechanistic disciplines that focus on the microhabitat and often ignore landscape-level processes. It involves the study of relationships between the physiology of organisms and their adaptation to environmental conditions. |
| HGLE202 | Organisms and Energy interactions | The course examines the principles concerning the interactions between organisms and their environment. We also explore patterns of distribution, factors affecting distribution, competition, predation, parasitism, mutualism, energy and nutrient flow in ecosystems, ecosystem diversity and the analysis of the process of succession. Furthermore, we assess the determinants and key characteristics of the major terrestrial biomes. Under biomes, emphasis is placed on the Savanna ecosystem. |
| HGLE200 |
Research methods |
Methods of conducting scientific research are central to the application of the scientific methods to understanding how the real world works. The primary goal of this course is to teach students how do conduct scientific research and communicate the results to the wider audience so that the new knowledge can be applied. All students enrolled for undergraduate degree programmes in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Zimbabwe must complete this course. The technical knowledge and skills to be acquired in this course enhance the competency of graduates interested in pursuing careers as Geo-information scientists, Geospatial Analysts, Spatial Ecologists, Remote Sensing Scientists, Geodatabase Managers, Geo-intelligence Specialists in government, the private sector and development agencies. |
| HGLE205 |
Ordination methods and indices |
Community ecologists typically need to analyze the effects of multiple environmental factors on species. Ordination methods are essentially operations on a community data matrix (or species by sample matrix). A community data matrix has taxa (usually species) as rows and samples as columns (Table 1) or vice versa. In community ecology, the term "sample" has diverged from its usage in statistics, and refers to the basic unit of observation. In most studies of vegetation, the sample is a quadrat, or transect – though it may consist of a number of subsamples. |
| HGLE380/HGLE370 | Industrial Attachment/Industrial Report | This module allows the student to apply knowledge gained in the first two years at a relevant institution to acquire geospatial skills and or competences in earth observation. The main objectives of the training course are: to help the student to put into practice the basic experimental and theoretical skills which were learnt; to provide exposure to and experience of the industrial environment; and to embark, if possible, on a research project under the joint supervision of a member from the department and a member of the training institution. The Industrial attachment will be assessed jointly by the industrial supervisor and the academic supervisor as well as by written reports submitted by the student. |
| HGLE480 | Dissertation Project | Students are required to do independent investigations of selected problems pertaining to dissertation. The dissertation is a core course commencing in the first semester of level four and students must pass the dissertation to graduate. Generally, research proposals originate from the student or Departmental research groups. The dissertation involves systematic collection of data relevant to the problem under investigation followed by appropriate analysis and interpretation. Purely theoretical or applied work leading to development of innovative solutions and or customized geo-applications is encouraged. A written report must be submitted by a specified deadline for assessment. |
| HGLE480 | Conservation Ecology and Planning | Landscape-scale conservation is a holistic approach to landscape management, aiming to reconcile the competing objectives of nature conservation and economic activities across a given landscape. Landscape-scale conservation may sometimes be attempted because of climate change. It can be seen as an alternative to site-based conservation. Many global problems such as poverty, food security, climate change, water scarcity, deforestation and biodiversity loss are connected. For example, lifting people out of poverty can increase consumption and drive climate change. Expanding agriculture can exacerbate water scarcity and drive habitat loss.Proponents of landscape management argue that as these problems are interconnected, coordinated approaches are needed to address them, by focusing on how landscapes can generate multiple benefits. Landscape planners may work on projects which are of broad geographical scope, concern many land uses or many clients or are implemented over a long period of time. As an example, the damage caused by unplanned mineral extraction was one of the early reasons for a public demand for landscape planning. |
| HGLE402 | Landscape epidemiology | Landscape epidemiology draws some of its roots from the field of landscape ecology. [1] Just as the discipline of landscape ecology is concerned with analysing both pattern and process in ecosystems across time and space, landscape epidemiology can be used to analyse both risk patterns and environmental risk factors. This field emerges from the theory that most vectors, hosts and pathogens are commonly tied to the landscape as environmental determinants control their distribution and abundance. With the recent availability of new computing technologies such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, statistical methods including spatial statistics and theories of landscape ecology, the concept of landscape epidemiology has been applied analytically to a variety of disease systems, including malaria, cholera, etc. |
| HGLE407 | Resource Inventorying and Assessment | The module involves methods and techniques of ecosystem inventorying and assessment. Inventories such as forest are expensive to conduct and the results need to be available as soon as possible following data acquisition. As such, efforts are ongoing to make the inventory faster, better, and cheaper by research to gain efficiencies in sample design and processing. |
| HGLE401 | Terrestrial and Marine Geosystems | Marine Geosystems are as diverse and dynamic as terrestrial ones, but far more expansive. Changes in ocean systems can have global repercussions because the oceans are connected to one another and water masses from different seas mix. But the rates of mixing and change of marine processes are not uniform. Sometimes the rate of change is more significant than the magnitude of change. In recent years, much of the Earth's land cover has changed rapidly, whether from deforestation or the expansion of urban areas. Land change models (LCMs) describe, project, and explain changes in and the dynamics of land use and land-cover. LCMs are a means of understanding ways that humans are changing the Earth's surface in the past, present, in forecasting land change into the future. |
| HGLE406 | Integrated Landscape Management | A landscape approach deals with large-scale processes in an integrated and multidisciplinary manner, combining natural resource management with environmental and livelihood considerations. Integrated landscape management is the management of production systems and natural resources in an area large enough to produce vital ecosystem services and small enough to be managed by the people using the land and producing those services. Integrated landscape management involves long-term collaboration among different groups of land managers and stakeholders to achieve their multiple objectives and expectations within the landscape for local livelihoods, health and well-being. |
| HGLE400 |
Species population and sampling |
Field techniques refer to the standardized methods employed to select, count, measure, capture, mark, and observe individuals sampled from the target population for the purpose of collecting data required to achieve study objectives. The term also includes methods used to collect voucher specimens, tissue samples, and habitat data. |
| HGLE405 | Human landscapes | The interaction and co-evolution of the human and natural ecosystem interactions are the driving forces for the current Earth System. The human Ecosystem meta-conceptional approach has to integrate the bio-and geo-centric approaches, derived from the natural sciences, and the approaches derived from the social sciences and the humanities in order to prevent further environmental degradation and drive natural and human systems towards a sustainable future. The Human Ecosystem also consists of the domain of information, perceptions (in landscape ecology this is the ecofield concept. |
| HGLE404 |
UAV systems for Ecological Applications |
The module focuses on the general principles and state of the art use of unmanned aerial systems for collecting high resolution earth observation data. The course is relevant to areas such disaster management, emergency response and vegetation and environmental analysis. |
