In a world challenged by climate change, rapid economic and cultural transformation, uneven opportunity, global migration, resurgent pandemics, domestic and geopolitical conflicts, and the sixth great extinction in the planet's history, it is imperative that students learn about the earth and their place on it. Geography offers students the opportunity to study the dynamics of global, national, regional and local change, both biophysical and social. Geographers place their own experience and action within these contexts. Geography also offers students the opportunity to learn cutting-edge skills of mapping, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data. Students who earn a Geography degree apply, represent, and communicate their understandings and skills in a wide range of professions.
Geography is the study of the physical and social processes that shape the world in which we live. It is an integrative discipline especially suited to examining complex and dynamic interactions between factors such as physical environmental processes, human impact on the environment, social inequality, urbanization, uneven economic development, conservation, population change and migration, geopolitics, cultural change, and a humanistic sense of place.
Geographic subfields and research topics cover an extraordinary range of pressing world issues: global climate change, environmental degradation, inequality, resource depletion, natural hazards, economic globalization and economic crises, migration and urbanization, world hunger, disease, human and indigenous rights, ethnic and religious conflict, the rise of authoritarianism—virtually all of the problems facing countries and communities today are the focus of geographic research.
Geographers make use of multiple methods in their work, from field measurements of physical environmental features, to modeling and complex data analysis, to interviews, surveys, documentary research, archival work, and participant-observation, to the use of satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems and Technology (GIST).
UMass geographers are engaged in research and activism addressing many of the great environmental, conservation, development, and social justice issues of our time, working at local, national, international, and global scales with expertise and projects in the Pioneer Valley, the U.S., the Arctic, China, Japan, Europe, and Latin America. The department also houses a major center of climate change research.
Human Geography
Human Geography seeks to identify and explain patterns and variations of demographic change, social organization, culture, economies, political systems, and environmental impacts. This involves human geographers in studying issues such as population change and migration, urbanization and urban change, land and water use, environmental change, conservation, sustainability, and development. The department offers courses in subfields of human geography, including conservation geography, political ecology, urban ecology, environmental history and issues, cultural geography, environmental perception and sense of place, humanistic geography, economic geography, and urban geography.
Physical Geography
Physical Geography involves studying the physical processes, both natural and anthropogenic, that affect the earth’s surface, atmosphere, and biosphere. The department has strengths in the study of climate, climate change, landforms and land surface processes, remote sensing of the environment, and GIS analysis and applications.
Geographic Information Science
Geographic Information Science (GIS) uses spatial and computational approaches to understanding relationships on the Earth. Whether concerning physical or human geography, GIS is a powerful set of knowledge, skills, and practices for exploring, understanding, and investigating the nature of spatial relationships. UMass Geography offers courses in many aspects of GIS, including Remote Sensing, GIS Programming, Spatial Decision Making, Cartography, and general GIS analysis methodologies.