Students will study the water cycle and how it operates at a variety of spatial scales and at short- and long-term timescales, from global to local. They will research the physical processes that control the circulation of water between the stores on land, in the oceans, in the cryosphere, and the atmosphere. Water insecurity is becoming a global issue with serious consequences and there is a range of different approaches to managing water supply which the students will focus on.

Students will look at how the carbon cycle operates at a range of spatial scales and timescales, from seconds to millions of years. Physical processes control the movement of carbon between stores on land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. Students will investigate our reliance on fossil fuels and how it has caused significant changes to carbon stores and contributed to climate change.

Students will research how superpowers and emerging superpowers have a very significant impact on the global economy, global politics, and the environment. Looking at the spheres of influence between these powers are frequently contested, resulting in geopolitical implications.

Student’s study how globalisation involves movements of capital, goods and people and how tensions can result between the logic of globalisation, with its growing levels of environmental, social and economic interdependence among people, economies and nation states and the traditional definitions of national sovereignty and territorial integrity.