Following devastating floods in 2020, five successive failed rainy seasons caused drought which exposed millions of people to acute food shortages in East Africa. The field project, MASIKA, is the first of its kind and aims to understand the atmospheric processes operating at the start the rainy season.
Backed by over £15 million funding, the University of Oxford is establishing a new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) that will combine the university's strengths in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, and environmental sciences. Over an initial eight years, The UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment (The Intelligent Earth Centre) - whose leadership team includes Prof Louise Slater, Professor of Hydroclimatology at SoGE - will train almost 100 PhD students to develop and apply cutting-edge AI technologies to tackle urgent environmental crises.
Introducing a weekly child payment system for poor families would be "transformational", according to Wales' children's commissioner. Prof Danny Dorling provides expert analysis in a recent BBC News article, discussing how the Scottish system has had a substantial effect on child poverty.
Writing a capstone dissertation is one of the most significant and (hopefully) rewarding aspects of completing a master's course here at SoGE. It's a daunting and almost mythical assignment that has both excited and terrified cohorts of MSc students for generations. Because the dissertation is arguably the most important aspect of a SoGE master's degree, many incoming graduate students will arrive with many pressing questions about what exactly writing a dissertation at Oxford is like. Emma Schneck, current MSc student, provides a brief guide on what to expect.
Dr Linda Speight explores, in an article for The Conversation, why Storm Babet caused dangerous flooding in Scotland and explains how hydrologists are able to to use their knowledge of how water moves across and through the landscape and computer models to help forecasters identify where the biggest floods will be.
A new Global Resilience Index, developed by researchers at the Environmental Change Institute, is helping policy makers understand climate risks to global infrastructure systems and plan appropriate investments and interventions.
Raphaella Mascia, postgraduate student on the MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management (BCM) course, recounts her experience on the Tenerife field trip and the importance of positive conservation outcomes.
Congratulations to Lucas Evans who has been named as the winner of RGS-IBG Digital Geographies Research Group's 2023 undergraduate dissertation prize. Lucas recently graduated from the BA in Geography course at the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE).
Two academic members at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) have been awarded the title of Professor by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to their fields of research, teaching and academic service. Congratulations to Louise Slater, Professor of Hydroclimatology, and Christian Brand, Professor of Transport, Energy and Climate Change, on this richly deserved achievement.
Britain's energy needs could be met entirely by wind and solar, according to a policy brief published by Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
Researchers face ethical dilemmas in every step of the research process, often unforeseen despite our best efforts of anticipation in the research design. Many complex ethical questions arise from the best intentions of producing inclusive and responsible research while avoiding harm to participants and researchers. These questions become more salient with the emergence of diverse creative and innovative research methods in the field, such as 'go-along', visual, and digital methods. Responding to the ethical and practical challenges in qualitative research, Dr Jennie Middleton, Dr Rosalie Warnock, and Professor Gillian Rose convened a two-part workshop on Thinking Care-fully with Method at SoGE in May.
