Module GEOG41715: Anticipating Future Environments

Department: Geography

GEOG41715: Anticipating Future Environments

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• This module aims to:
• 1. Equip students with an understanding of how environmental systems may change in the future, and the risks and hazards these changes may pose
• 2. Outline and critically evaluate different methods used to anticipate future environmental conditions
• 3. Consider how to forecast future environmental processes under uncertain conditions, and how to interpret forecasts and their uncertainty within decision-making contexts

Content

• Many environmental systems are expected to undergo substantial changes driven by both external and internal influences on the Earth system, including anthropogenic and natural impacts. Because the supporting data are often incomplete and uncertain, it is difficult to forecast these changes in ways that allow us to understand and manage environmental systems, anticipate hazards, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and create sustainable futures. This challenge is compounded by complex and sometimes unpredictable responses and interactions between different parts of the Earth system.
• This module explores how methods such as numerical modelling can be used in tandem with climate change projections to forecast the future behaviour of a range of environmental systems under conditions of uncertainty. Students will develop skills in synthesising current state-of-the-art research, tools and methods, and in critically analysing the opportunities and gaps in our current understanding.
• Indicative content:
• The module will consider how we forecast and manage processes and hazards including examples from:
• • future sea-level rise
• • impacts of melting glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost
• • extreme events (e.g. flooding, heat waves, droughts, storms)
• • landslides and hillslope processes
• • dryland degradation
• • changes to oceans (e.g. circulation changes, marine heat waves, acidification)

Learning Outcomes

• Upon successful completion of this module, students will:
• Understand links between climate change and environmental processes, and how these might lead to cascading effects between different Earth System components
• Be able to apply methods including modelling to forecast environmental processes including environmental hazards
• Have an appreciation of how forecasts can take uncertainty into account

• Critical evaluation of methods used to forecast environmental processes, including model uncertainty and the limits of model prediction
• Making forecasts under conditions of uncertainty and incomplete data
• Critical analysis and interpretation of forecasts, and extracting key messages for use in research, policy and practice

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Written and other communication
• Ability to analyse, synthesis and evaluate different sources of data

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• This module will be delivered by the Department of Geography

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Formative feedback will be provided through practical sessions and could include comments on a report plan and/or draft report.

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.