Vision
The Department of Geography and Geomatics (GIS/RS) is to be a model department primarily focused on enhancement and sustenance of an academic environment conducive to excellence in teaching, research and community service. Department of Geography and Geomatics (GIS/RS), University of Peshawar
Program: Geomatics (GIS and Remote Sensing)
Objectives
To provide quality education by teaching and
conducting research in the field of Geomatics
Introduction
The Department of Geography was founded in 1956 to cater the educational requirements of the people of the province, the adjoining FATA and other nearby areas. It is committed to the mission of quality teaching and research, in the field of the physical, human and applied geography, environment, natural resource conservation and technical geography including Geomatics. The Institute has contributed a lot in the initiation of new and innovate disciplines, required to fulfill the need of the people of the region, such as Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) and Disaster Preparedness & Management which are now full-fledged department of Environmental Sciences and Center for Disaster Preparedness & Management. The Institute has also started post-graduate diploma and MSc degree program in the field of Urban & Regional Planning in 1993 with the collaboration of the then Institute of Planning Studies, now the School of Built Environment, University of Nottingham, U.K. To keep pace with demand and supply the development planners, engineers, scientists and resource managers now make considerable use of GIS and Remote Sensing which is the most powerful computer-based Geoinformatics for modeling and decision making. Geomatics (GIS and Remote Sensing) is a multi-disciplinary field of study. The major users are environmental and urban planners, resource managers, engineers, geographers and scientists depend on the availability of up-to-date, well-structured spatial and attribute data. Aerial photographs, Satellite Remote Sensing, Real-time GIS, Remote Sensing and Global Positioning System are often used as a source and tool for spatial analysis. In this regard, understanding and acquiring expertise is necessary to extract data from these sources and bring into the GIS environment. Furthermore, systems are required to manipulate and analyze the spatial data and present it in quality maps and database as output. To achieve this task, the Institute has recently incorporated the emerging tools of Geographical Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and Computing in the curriculum. At the same time in order to fulfill the market demand, Post-graduate Diploma in Geomatics (GIS and Remote Sensing) has been started. Besides this, 4-year BS and 2-year MS degree programmes in Geomatics have already been approved by the statutory bodies, while MSc and MPhil/PhD programmes are in the pipeline. Looking to the importance, market demand and successful launching of one year postgraduate diploma in Geomatics, it has been decided to start BS 4-year and MS 2-year in Geomatics (GIS and Remote Sensing) from the session 2011-2012, which at present is not offered elsewhere in the public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The faculty of the Institute of Geography, Urban and Regional Planning, in close coordination with the faculty from related departments, University of Peshawar as well as from related national and international organizations will provide inputs in conducting courses and research.
