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Landscape Systems Management

Module description

In this module you will actively learn the practical skills needed to solve real-world challenges by running your own analyses of the impacts of very real events on environmental systems. Lectures and reading cover important aspects of how hillslope-fluvial landscape systems function, all of which are relevant to the applied exercises covered in the practicals, which are focused in areas of Exeter staff and student research. Your mark will come from two professional style reports similar to those expected beyond university, with the second report (60%) due in Term 3 (to minimise interference with your dissertation). The experience of writing professional reports and presenting them well is an invaluable skill. Student and alumni surveys routinely rate this module as highly relevant for their employability. If you enjoy working with GIS and environmental data, solving problems actively, and have the disciplined work ethic needed to complete technical practicals, then through this module you will have produced substantial reports to show for your efforts!

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module teaches you applied skills for investigating how environmental conditions (climate change, geology, vegetation, land use, and engineering) modulate flooding, erosion, sediment transport and biogeochemical fluxes through drainage catchments – from hillslopes to channel-floodplain systems to coastal depositional centres. Emphasis is placed on analysing how geomorphic and hydrologic processes respond to the integrative effects of environmental change, from source to sink, both spatially and temporally, with implications for catchment response dynamics and the evaluation and management of landscape systems (using industry standard analytical methods that interface with ArcGIS). GIS and environmental modelling/managing abilities are developed in the practicals, with the goal of increasing employability for Geography students interested in spatial skills.

The lectures and practicals draw on Exeter research. Specifically, the HEC-RAS river modelling component focuses on flooding problems along the Sacramento River that are researched by Prof Aalto (and a number of Exeter students). You will find this module attractive if you:

• possess significant interest/skills for working with spatial data
• can organise your schedule to complete the first practical while you attend to other academic obligations (the 2^nd practical is due in Term 3), and
• seek the challenge of immersive, high-reward, skills-based active learning judged by professional-style reports for environmental management.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Discuss landscape processes and morphology
• 2. Describe and quantify integrative response to perturbations across space and time
• 3. Employ models and ArcGIS to investigate spatial and temporal data to quantify change, impact, and risk using standard professional models
• 4. Explain controls on material fluxes on Earth’s surface
• 5. Assess, synthesise and quantitatively evaluate various scenarios of environmental risk
• 6. Understand and analyse skills for how humans can affect, manage, and restore fluvial systems
• 7. Use industry standard ArcGIS-based models for evaluating runoff hydrology, flooding, and integrative catchment response to a range of environmental changes

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Outline a diverse range of approaches to the generation of knowledge and understanding, with a focus on landscape processes and environmental change
• 9. Explain quantitatively the significance of spatial relationships and the temporal distribution of physical processes on physical and human environments

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 10. Communicate ideas, principles and theories effectively and fluently by written means with supporting professional diagrams analytical results in professional-style reports
• 11. Develop a reasoned and quantitatively supported arguments
• 12. Formulate and evaluate questions and identify and evaluate approaches to problem-solving that meet professional standards

Syllabus plan

This module will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Morphologies of change, risk management, and environmental restoration
• The Source: a summary of hillslope characteristics and processes
• Climate, geology, weathering, topography, and soil production
• Land cover, runoff, mass wasting, and erosion within upland catchments
• The Sink: dynamics of rivers, floodplains, and fluvial dispersal systems
• Transport, recycling, and storage of water and sediment in the fluvial system
• Scaling up: integrative effects of magnitude, frequency, and changes in flux
• Modelling integrative impacts in ArcGIS/ArcHydro/HEC-RAS/HEC-HMS

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Montgomery, D.R. 2007. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. Univ. California Press.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page
  

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Articles and practical guides will be distributed electronically, sourced from leading journals such as:

• Science
• Nature
• Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
• Water Resources Research
• Hydrological Processes, and
• JGR Earth Surface.

Extensive lecture slides and supplementary material are also provided by the instructor (this provides material and summaries for further reading).

Key words search

Rivers and hillslopes, ArcGIS, systems analysis, practical reports