Environmental Management BSc(Hons)

Course structure

You'll focus on four key themes, allowing you to develop a programme of study that matches your interests and career ambitions.

Challenges for the environment – covers issues to help understand and put into context human impacts on the environment at a national and international level.

Vocational skills for environmental managers – focuses on how to apply key skills in critical thinking, data analysis and emergent technologies to environmental management.

Physical environments – covers the physical environment, systems and approaches across different timescales and multiple domains.

Cultural environments – considers cultural environments, developing critical skills in understanding and analysing multiple interpretations of landscapes and resources and the challenges around their use and exploitation.

You have the option to enrol on this course part-time, giving you more flexibility in the way you choose to study.

Year 1

Designed to give you a broad understanding of environmental management, our first year introduces you to the key areas of physical geography, human geography, environmental issues, statistical and spatial analysis (GIS). You will also gain an understanding of geology through a module on the earth and ocean system. 

Modules

• Fundamentals of Physical Geography

  This module provides a theoretical and practical introduction to azonal (tectonic, climatic, hydrological, fluvial, coastal, slope, aeolian, and biogeographical) and zonal (glacial and periglacial) physical geographical systems. You will examine the ways in which these systems interact with and influence human activities, both at the present day and over archaeological timescales.

• Global Environmental Challenges

  This module introduces pressing global environmental challenges which you'll explore through natural science and social science case studies. The module focuses on scientific, social, economic and political aspects of current and past environmental issues and examines how some of the issues may be addressed through interdisciplinary management and mitigation.

• Academic Learning and Field Skills

  This module will introduce you to academic study skills, fieldwork skills and transferable skills for geography and environmental sciences. The module will support you in how to learn at university, and in particular, with learning independently. You'll also take part in a residential field course where you will learn field data collection and analysis techniques, methodology design and how to present research findings.

• Human Geography

  This module provides a critical introduction to key themes in human geography. You will develop an appreciation of geographical concepts such as nature, space, place and scale through consideration of geographies of global political-economic change, past and contemporary cultural geographies and geographical imaginations, and social geographies of everyday life.

• The Earth and Ocean System

  In this module you will explore and discuss the four ‘spheres’ of the Earth system: the lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, and how they interact to produce the stratigraphic record of Earth history.

• Statistical and Spatial Data Analysis

  This module will introduce you to a variety of techniques utilised in both the academic and professional world for the analysis of geographical and environmental data. Emphasis is placed on developing skills and abilities to graphically/visually display data and assess patterns/relationships through statistical testing, and geospatial display and analysis. The module will introduce you to and allow you to become a competent user of statistical software.

Year 2

Core modules deepen your subject-specific knowledge and skills. You will gain a critical understanding of issues such as those placed on landscapes from sectors including: energy generation, flood management, drinking water, historic environment resources and biodiversity; and environmental pollution including water pollution, air quality and waters.

You will develop employability skills relating to environmental management. Option modules allow you to study areas that interest you most.

Modules

• Professional Practice for Global Challenges
• Research and Field Skills
• Climate Change

Options*

• Earth Surface Processes
• Ice Age Earth
• Environmental Pollution
• Sustainable Futures
• GIS and Remote Sensing: Principles and Practice

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Placement year

A placement year offers you a great opportunity to:

• apply the knowledge and skills gained during your studies to a professional environment and discover new ones
• build knowledge of real-world businesses and organisations
• make contacts in industry and commerce
• increase your confidence
• improve your time management
• draw on the experience gained on placement to inform your final year studies.

Students from our geography and environmental sciences courses have secured placements in organisations such as the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Transport for London, the Field Studies Council, and with environmental firms and consultancies.

Final year 

The focus of your final year is your dissertation, for which you will undertake live research in a specific area of environmental management.

Option modules enable you to tailor your studies to support your dissertation and future career aspirations. This includes the opportunity to develop a more in-depth understanding of environmental policy and law through masters level options available in this year.

Modules

• Dissertation 
• Environmental Impact Assessment

Options*

• Rivers, Coasts and Wetlands: Assessment and management
• Water, Sanitation and Health
• Atmosphere, Weather and Climate
• Waste Management and the Circular Economy
• Political Ecology: Contested Environments
• Advanced GIS and Remote Sensing
• Environmental Management in Organisations
• Environmental Policy and Law

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Learning facilities 

Our facilities include:

• environment and public health laboratory equipped with bench top spectrophotometers, membrane filtration equipment, centrifuge, and sterilisation equipment for public health microbiology procedures and genetic profiling methods
• soil and water analysis laboratories equipped with a range of spectrometers for different uses, gas chromatographs, pH meters and experimental cells for experimental work into the electro-kinetics of contaminated sediments
• soil and sediment analysis laboratory with drying ovens, and Malvern Mastersizer 2000 laser particle size analyser
• hydraulics laboratory equipped with a recirculating flume with sediment transport system and interchangeable weirs, wave tank, a river basin for river/floodplain simulation and two further flumes with interchangeable weirs
• environmental simulation laboratory with hydraulic stream table
• scanning electron microscopy facility with dedicated technician support
• air quality laboratory with instrumentation to understand global atmospheric composition
• computer suites running GIS and other professional software
• equipment for field-based geophysical surveying
• field collection equipment.

Meet the team

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Course fees

If you choose to take the professional placement (sandwich) year offered on this course you will pay a reduced fee during this year. Our fee for the professional placement year is £1,410 for UK students and £2,180 for international students. This fee may be subject to small increases, in line with inflation.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2023–24.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

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