geography bridges the gaps between the natural sciences and the study of humanity. it integrates diverse fields such as economics, ecology, political studies, urban design, resource management, human health, and climatology.

focus areas

uvic's geography program offers four study focus areas: physical geography, human geography, environment & sustainability, and geomatics. uvic have defined these categories to give students a guide to course selections, especially for the last two years of study.

physical geography: physical geographers are trained to recognize and explain patterns of climates, land forms, vegetation, and water and to understand how they interact. topics include geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, biogeography, and ecology.

human geography: human geographers are trained to understand how people make places, how they organize space and society, how they interact with each other in places and across space, and how they make sense of others and themselves in their locality, region, and planet.

environment & sustainability: environmental geography is all about knowing and applying geographic information about relationships between nature and society. topics include environmental governance, sustainability, biogeography, conservation, ecology, resource management, and coastal studies.

geomatics: combine geography and computer science into a field known as geomatics. this includes learning how gps (global positioning system), satellite imagery, remotely-sensed data (e.g. drone-gathered), and spatial mapping are integrated within gis (geographic information systems) and visualization tools. learn how to collect, process, analyze and display data and use maps to improve the world.

careers

• cartographer
• education program coordinator
• emergency planner
• environmental assessment coordinator
• first nations governance
• forestry technician
• geotechnical engineer
• gis specialist
• land use planner
• marine conservationist
• meteorologist