College of Geographical Science

The School of Geographical Sciences in SWU, equipped with advanced facilities and a satisfactory collection of books, has a strong teaching staff. The school is a very important base for the state to train geography teachers for middle schools, colleges and universities, to train professionals in the fields of physical geography, quaternary geography, regional geography, urban planning, land management, real estate management, tourism development and environmental management.

The school is composed of the Department of Geography Science, Department of Resources Environment and Urban Management, Department of Geographical Information. Besides, there are many teaching and scientific research organizations, including the Resources and Environment Research Center, the Karst Environment and Harness Karst Desert Management Institute, the Subtropical Biogeography Institute (in partnership with The School of Life Science), the Western Asia institute (in partnership with The School of History, Culture and Tourism ), the Regional Economy Institute and the Territory Resource Institute. And there are four teaching and research sections in the fields of physical geography, regional geography, human geography and geographic information system. In addition, there are also three labs, including the geographic information system lab, the physical geography lab and the geographic teaching method lab. The school offers programs leading to bachelor’s degree in the fields of geographic science, resources and environment management and urban planning, geographic information system. It also offers adult education programs in the fields of regional economy, real estate management, land management. It is authorized by the state to offer programs leading to master’s degree in the fields of physical geography, human geography quaternary geology and Geographical Information Systerm, and to offer programs leading to doctor’s degree in the field of physical geography. Among all the subjects, the physical geography and human geography rank among the key subjects first authorized by the Chongqing government.

The school has a strong teaching staff with 14 professors, 28 associate professors, and 6 invited professors, and the students enrollment is over 1400. A lot of advanced instruments and equipments are available, such as atom-spectrometer, laser grain size analyzer, colored drawer, scanner, digitalizer, laser range finder, digital longitude and latitude finder. In addition, the school has a collection of 13000 volumes either in Chinese or English, and more than 330 kinds of periodicals have been subscribed to.

The research of the school is involved in the fields of karst and harness karst desert management, regional physical geography, regional planning, land utilization, distribution of natural regions, geography of subtropical zone, city geography, the prevention and control of hazards, environmental protection, map compilation, local chronicles compilation, West Asia geography and reform on geography education. During these years, more than 110 scientific research projects have been accomplished, including the research on optimization principles of the ecosystem in the karst and harness karst desert areas in South West China (key project of Education Ministry), the research on quaternary environmental changes and debris development in Xiaojiang drainage-basin of Yunnan Province (project of National Natural Science Foundation of China), the agro-forestry production mode and benefit appraisal in newly reclaimed land in Three-Gorges Areas(Spring Sunshine project by ministry of Education), the research on geomorphologic evolution and environmental change in Three-Gorges Areas of Yangtz River(key teacher planning by Ministry of Education), the research on the karst ecosystem in Jinfo mountain(key project by Education Commission of Chongqing), the research on the migration and the sustainable development of economy and society in Three-Gorges project(key project by Science Commission of Chongqing). In the academic sector publications such as Acta Geographica Sinica, Geographic Science, Science journal, Economic Geography, Chinese Environmental Science, published more than 300 papers, among which there is 10 collected by SCI, 8 by EI. In addition, more than 70 monographs and textbooks have been published. So far, researchers in the school have won nearly 100 prizes in scientific studies at the national, provincial and municipal levels.