JAMES COOK UNIVERSITYSchool of Tropical Environment Studies
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The School of Tropical Environmental Studies and Geography (TESAG) at James Cook University offers undergraduate programs in Spatial Analysis and GIS, and postgraduate programs leading to Honours, Graduate Diploma, Masters and PhD degrees. Courses include the theory and practice of GIS and digital image analysis. Courses are also integrated with other disciplines including environmental science, physical and human geography, tropical biology and earth sciences. Our postgraduate coursework degrees (Graduate Diploma, Master of Applied Science) are for people who want to acquire or increase their skills in the design and collection of, manipulation and general use of spatially referenced data. The courses provide a sound theoretical and practical education in the principles of geographic information system development using ecological, environmental, land and socioeconomic themes. Employment prospects for graduates of these courses are outstanding.
The School has adopted Erdas Imagine as its principal image processing software in combination with ArcInfo and ArcView GIS software. In addition we run MapInfo and Idrisi. Three GIS laboratories in Townsville and one laboratory in Cairns provide staff and student access to software, while a newly established research facility in Cairns runs Imagine Professional, Orthobase and Virtual GIS. In addition staff and students have online access to a new High Performance Computing Facility which runs software such as Virtuozo. An important initiative in the School is the Wet Tropics Spatial Database, funded by ARC and research infrastructure grants. This provides access to Landsat ETM+ imagery, DEMs (both terrestrial and marine), Topo 250K data and other regional spatial databases from a variety of sources. Current research projects include Aboriginal community GIS in Cape York, fire ecology and indigenous knowledge systems, limestone landscape classification and terrain modelling, rock wallaby habitat suitability assessment, rainforest dieback monitoring, and cyclone damage to coral reef ecosystems.
Further information is available from Professor David Gillieson David.Gillieson@jcu.edu.au; Ph: +61-7-4042-1389; fax: +61-7-4042-1364.
(This page last modified on 22 August 2001)