Master of Environmental Geospatial Science (P7B)

Overview  2024

Entry Requirements

See entry requirements

Duration

Minimum 2 Years, up to a maximum of 5 Years

Duration

Duration refers to the minimum and maximum amounts of time in which this course can be completed. It will be affected by whether you choose to study full or part time, noting that some programs are only available part time.

Location

Hobart
Semester 1

Entry Requirements

See entry requirements

Duration

Minimum 2 Years, up to a maximum of 5 Years

Duration

Duration refers to the minimum and maximum amounts of time in which this course can be completed. It will be affected by whether you choose to study full or part time, noting that some programs are only available part time.

Entry requirements

Location

Hobart
Semester 1
Environmental challenges are becoming increasingly complex and problems like bushfire management and climate change requires highly skilled professionals. Environment professionals need to be able to analyse a variety of information, including mapped data, to adapt to the current crises. Business as usual is becoming increasingly data-rich and Tasmania’s Land Information System puts us in the fortunate position of being able to use geospatial information for many planning and day-to-day decisions across a wide range of sectors.

This course will teach you to integrate geospatial and environmental knowledge to make practical recommendations for enhancing decisions around places – both predominantly natural through to highly urban. The unique combination of environmental and geospatial skills in a pragmatic, case-based learning environment will place graduates well for an exciting career.

You will apply skills in geographical information systems and remote sensing to address complex problems associated with managing ecosystems and fostering sustainable practices. These skills are in high demand by government and industry employers, and your will benefit from our close connections with the profession and work-integrated learning.

Graduate with the skills to tackle complex problems such as climate change, and how to use spatial data to understand changing landscapes.

Graduates of this course typically work for local and state government, not-for-profits, and  the private sector. People with a combination of environmental  and technical skills are in demand, with employers including environmental consultants. Graduates can conduct field research and map and report on those findings. They can combine these practical skills with desktop investigations and spatial analyses. All parts of society are needing to make informed decisions about complex issues to do with biodiversity, climate change, bushfire responses and liveable cities, to name a few. Graduates of this course are equipped to tackle these challenges.

  • 1 Synthesise theory and contemporary knowledge in environmental geospatial science fields to define problems and solutions.
  • 2 Justify solutions to a range of complex environmental geospatial science problems by applying data collection and analysis techniques
  • 3 Manage the design, documentation, and resourcing of geospatial science solutions in diverse environments workplaces, and across contested environment issues
  • 4 Develop and justify your own positions on environmental geospatial science issues in line with principles of sustainability.
  • Field skills

    The course provides a range of practical experiences, from being able to assess fuel loads for bushfire planning, to assessing urban bushland for biodiversity values. Being able to research and write a management plan or give practical advice about changing coasts is all part of the  learning in this course.

    Living laboratory

    Our campuses are close to a diverse range of environments from urban to remote. Within 30 minutes of the Sandy Bay campus, you can access the Tasmanian wilderness to the north of Mt Wellington/kunanyi. This unparalleled access makes for rich learning in best practice approaches for environmental stewardship.

    This course is supported by Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ). Through EIANZ, there is a range of professional learning opportunities and a formal mentoring program.

    KGA709 Professional Placement

    Through this authentic, problem-based unit, you will be encouraged to develop contacts within their profession and with broader stakeholders. The unit has learning that will encourage students to practise key employability skills and develop their skills as reflexive practitioners, reflecting on their values, professional ethics and professional codes of practice. Assessments will enable students to apply discipline specific knowledge and insights from the scholarly literature to everyday planning and management practices.

    Via authentic assessment tasks, students will enhance their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Assessments emphasise important transferable employability skills, such as clear writing, oral presentation skills, report writing, field and professional skills (e.g. preparing a CV, writing briefing notes, addressing selection criteria).

    Career outcomes

    The job market for people with a combination of environment and geospatial science skills is strong and getting stronger as infrastructure projects associated with COVID recovery ramp up demand within local government and environmental consultancies. Employers consistently ask for environment graduates who have a sophisticated knowledge and ability to create, analyse and present spatial data as well as being able to conduct environmental fieldwork and have knowledge of environmental planning. The combination of technical geospatial skills with environmental skills makes graduates more employable than an environment course on its own.

    Our teaching team is in an ideal position to train geospatial professionals. We are ranked above world standard (ERA 5) for outstanding research performance and provide students with unique experiences that directly relates to delivering a distinctive and place-based experience.

    Specialist geospatial skills give graduates access to a range of jobs at both entry-level with government, industry or a not-for-profit, including the following:

    • Environmental Project Officer
    • Environmental Consultant
    • Environmental Scientist
    • Environmental Technician
    • Geographic Information Systems Officer
    • Natural Resource Officer
    • Natural Environment Project Officer
    • Sustainability Advisor

    Course structure

    This degree may be completed in 3 or 4 semesters depending on level of qualifications on entry and your discipline preparedness. You may be eligible for the 3 semester course if you have a Bachelor degree in a science field with a major in Environmental Management and/or (Geo)Spatial Sciences completed to a standard of achievement that is deemed acceptable by the College. Students in the 3 semester course are exempt from the transition units in their first year and require 50 credit points. Units should be selected to fill in knowledge and skill gaps and will depend on the applicant’s disciplinary strengths. 

    Four semester students should complete 200 credit points. All students complete a second year consisting of 100 credit points. In second year, 50 credit points will consist of the independent Research Thesis Pathway, or Professional Research Pathway. If a student meets the requirements for entry into our independent research stream, then the units KGA742 Research Thesis A and KGA743 Research Thesis B will replace KGA703 Professional Research Methods and KGA704 Professional Research Practice. The independent Research stream requires a coursework average of 75% or over in the first year of the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science (full-time equivalent) and approval of a research topic from both a supervisor and the Unit Co-ordinator.

    Units in this degree contribute either 12.5 or 25 credit points per unit to your total. Look at the individual unit details to see the credit points and other details for each unit.

    Conservation efforts globally are focussed primarily on biodiversity, but geodiversity elements and features such as soils, rivers, mountains and caves provide humans with awe and inspiration, enjoyment, and a wealth of ecosystem and geosystem services. In this unit, you will…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    LauncestonSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit is essential for those working towards a career managing natural environments and people in protected areas. While protected areas are essential for conserving biodiversity, key threats to biodiversity - fire, weeds, and ferals - operate at landscape scale.…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit introduces legal, administrative, scientific, and social aspects of environmental impact assessment (EIA) using case studies. The unit emphasises the practical aspects of environmental impact assessment in Tasmanian contexts, but environmental impact assessment processes and legislation are similar in…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit is designed to provide students studying at the graduate level with a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of spatial information. This unit will introduce students to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and basic remote sensing analysis, with a focus…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    LauncestonSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    As more businesses and scientists adopt geographical information systems (GIS), there is increasing demand for graduates with strong skills in collecting, managing, analysing, and visualising spatial datasets. GIS and spatial analysis skills will be indispensable for almost all careers in…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit introduces you to theoretical and practical foundations of remote sensing. The unit starts with the physics of remote sensing including the concepts of electromagnetic energy and the interaction of energy with the atmosphere and the earth surface. We…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    Students in this unit will undertake the equivalent of an unpaid, professional placement of 80 hours duration, which gives them a work integrated learning experience – providing intended learning outcomes that could reasonably be expected from a placement within a…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit builds on the theory and skills of KGG542 Environmental Remote Sensing A and focuses on advanced aspects of remotely sensed image analysis that turn raw remote sensing data into valuable information. These additional remote sensing analysis skills are…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    Choose one unit from the following

    In this unit you will develop the knowledge and skills needed to undertake planning for protected area systems. We will explore the frameworks, processes and methods used to identify areas for inclusion in national reserve systems. Students will have the…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    OnlineWinter school

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit focuses on advanced aspects of spatial data analysis, including practical aspects of developing software scripts for GIS analysis and customisation. This unit will start with a field excursion where you will collect your own point sample data with…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    This unit is currently unavailable.

    Everything on earth and in space has a location, and in modern society we use spatial information (i.e. positions) to understand the world around us and our place in it. The rise of easily-accessible location data via Global Navigation Satellite…

    Credit Points: 12.5

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    Note: the Independent Research Pathway requires a coursework average of 75% or over in the first year of the Master of Environmental Geospatial Sciences (full-time equivalent) and approval of a research topic from both a supervisor and the Unit Co-ordinator.

    This unit focuses on learning research methods to solve real problems. You will come to understand how to design research, define an argument in response to the problems, use scholarly databases, consider ethical issues in data collection, generate field data,…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    This unit provides postgraduate students with the skills and knowledge to undertake policy-based research - a key transferable employability skill. Practical skills development focuses on undertaking research to inform evidence-based policy positions for a topical real-world issue. Upon completing this…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 1

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    The independent research stream requires a coursework average of 75% or over to be achieved in the first year and approval of a research topic from both a supervisor and the Unit Co-ordinator.

    Research and project management skills are core professional competencies. Undertaking a thesis as part of your Masters will equip you with the experience needed to undertake research independently or as part of a team, and the skills to design and…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    Research and project management skills are core professional competencies. Undertaking a thesis as part of your Masters will equip you with the experience needed to undertake research independently or as part of a team, and the skills to design and…

    Credit Points: 25

    LocationStudy periodAttendance optionsAvailable to
    HobartSemester 1
    HobartSemester 2
    OnlineSemester 1
    OnlineSemester 2

    Key: On-campus    Off-Campus    International students    Domestic students

    Entry requirements

    Candidates for the Master of Environmental Geospatial Sciences shall be qualified for entry if they hold a bachelor degree in any discipline at the University of Tasmania or hold other tertiary qualification(s) deemed by the College to be equivalent for this purpose. 

    Admission to most postgraduate coursework courses at the University of Tasmania require qualifications equivalent to an Australian bachelor degree. Applicants must achieve the required grade in their qualifying studies, meet any prerequisite subjects, and meet English language requirements to be eligible for an offer.

    English Language Requirements  

    For students who do not meet the English Language Requirement through citizenship or prior studies in English in an approved country, evidence of an approved English language test completed within the last 2 years must be provided. See the English Language Requirements page for more information.

    English Language Requirements are:  IELTS (Academic) 6.5 (no individual band less than 6.0)

    Course Specific Requirements

    Candidates for the Master of Environmental Geospatial Sciences shall be qualified for entry if they hold a bachelor degree in any discipline at the University of Tasmania or hold other tertiary qualification(s) deemed by the College to be equivalent for this purpose. 

    Students in this course may be eligible for a reduction in the volume of learning of:

    • up to 100 credit points if they have completed a Bachelor Honours (AQF 8) award in a cognate discipline; or
    • up to 50 credit points if they have completed a Bachelor (AQF 7) award in a cognate discipline.

    Articulation from: The Graduate Certificate of GIS (S5A) fully articulates into the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science. Candidates enrolling in the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science who have completed S5A will be given credit for the units of the Graduate Certificate.

    The Bachelor of Applied Science (Professional Honours in Environmental Geospatial Science) (P4J) also fully articulates into the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science. Candidates enrolling in the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science who have completed Professional Honours will be given credit for the units of the Professional Honours.

    Articulation to: Graduates are eligible to apply for a Research Higher Degree program, including PhD, if they complete the research pathway (units KGA742 and 743) which involves the production of a 50 CP research thesis.

    Fees & scholarships

    Domestic students

    Options for this course

    Cost shouldn’t get in the way of you studying.

    If you’re a domestic postgraduate student, you might be eligible for a Commonwealth supported place in this course. This means your fees will be subsidised by the Australian Government. You’ll only need to pay the student contribution amount for each unit you study within the course.

    You may also be able to defer payment of the student contribution amount by accessing a HECS-HELP loan from the Government. If eligible, you’ll only have to pay your tuition fees once you start earning above a specific amount.

    Further information is available at Scholarships, fees and costs.

    Student contribution

    Student contribution amounts are charged for each unit of study. This means that how much you’ll pay will depend on which units you choose. Find out more about student contribution amounts.

    An important note on Youth Allowance and Austudy

    The Department of Social Services has approved some accredited and professionally-oriented Master courses for student payments through Youth Allowance or Austudy. This means if you enrol in one of these courses, you may be eligible for student payments. However, please be aware that this is not the case for all Master courses. Please visit our Scholarships, Fees and Costs website for further information.

    Further information

    Detailed fee information for domestic students is available at Scholarships, fees and costs, including additional information in relation to the compulsory Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF).

    Domestic students enrolled in certain postgraduate coursework programs may not be eligible for student payments through Youth Allowance and Austudy. Visit the Department of Social Services website to find out more about eligibility for Centrelink support and the list of eligible courses

    International students

    2024 Total Course Fee (international students): $ 75,804 AUD *.

    Course cost based on a rate of $37,250 AUD per standard, full-time year of study (100 credit points).

    * Please note that this is an indicative fee only.

    International students

    International students are charged the Student Services and Amenities Fee but this fee is incorporated in the annual rate. International students do not have to make any additional SSAF payments.

    Scholarships

    For information on general scholarships available at the University of Tasmania, please visit the scholarships website.

    How can we help?

    Do you have any questions about choosing a course or applying? Get in touch.

    Domestic
    13 8827 (13 UTAS)
    International
    +61 3 6226 6200
    Email
    Course.Info@utas.edu.au
    Online
    Online enquiries

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