Geography and the Environment
Research
Cultural Geography and Environmental Humanities
This research area links the longstanding expertise in cultural and historical geography at Syracuse University with the growing interdisciplinary fields of geohumanities and the environmental humanities.
Researchers in this specialization examine the formation of cultural landscapes, the meanings and emotions people experience in them, and subjective responses and relations to place and nature.
Faculty use diverse methodological tools and approaches, including archival research, field studies and oral histories, ethnography, historical GIS, digital humanities, more-than-human geography, and spatial history.
We examine a similarly diverse range of empirical sites and objects, including material landscapes, museum installations, artwork, film and media, literature, official documents, and more.
We often collaborate widely, building relationships with community stakeholders, historians, art historians, planners and more from across the spectrum of the humanities.
Environment-Society Geography
Environment-society geographers at Syracuse University focus on the relationship between environment and society. We are interested in questions about who decides how nature is used, managed and understood.
Research in this area encompasses the fields of political ecology, environmental history, animal geographies and multispecies ethnography, geography and art, energy and natural resources, the political economy of nature, environmental governance, environmental justice, food systems, and the human dimensions of environmental change.
We explore these themes through fieldwork, archival research and visual culture analysis, often drawing on critical scholarship and social theory.
GISciences and Geospatial Technologies
Researchers at Syracuse University use the tools of GIScience—the theory and practice of collecting, analyzing and representing spatial data—to answer critical geographical questions across diverse spatial, social and environmental contexts.
To understand diverse natural and social processes (ranging from climate change and earth systems processes, to public health and urban justice issues), we use diverse geospatial technologies to display and analyze and model geospatial patterns and relationships.
Research in this cluster encompasses a range of geospatial technologies (e.g., GIS, remote sensing, cartography and emerging technologies like GeoAI and location-based services), methods and theoretical approaches.
Faculty also draw from alternative frameworks (e.g., critical, decolonial, feminist) to interrogate the power dynamics embedded in spatial data, mapping processes and representations, expanding GIScience beyond technical applications to include questions of equity and social justice.
Through participatory mapping, counter-mapping, and spatial storytelling methods, we work with community partners to visualize complex social and environmental challenges.
Physical Geography
Physical geographers at Syracuse University examine diverse processes occurring between the natural components of earth’s system, such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and the biosphere.
We also examine human modification of the natural processes that constitute the earth system.
Faculty members conduct research in in the U.S. and internationally in four principal areas:
- climate modeling and climate change-related extreme weather events;
- fluvial and hillslope geomorphology, including soil erosion, sediment transport and river morphodynamics;
- spatial and temporal variations of land covers at the watershed scales; and
- land use modification in urban settings and its impacts on climate processes and human response.
Political Geography and Political Economy
Political geography and political economy researchers at Syracuse University are interested in the multiple scaled practices of citizenship, development and governance.
We examine the complex and often contradictory processes through which flows of capital, people and knowledge are constituted, disseminated and challenged and the historical and geographical contexts within which places and subjects are imagined and transformed.
Researchers in this specialization examine shifting patterns of production, labor and accumulation in a range of industries and value chains—past, present and future.
We pay particular attention to the inequalities created by these global flows and, in turn, how they structure and are structured by global space, as well as how individuals resist or rework these power relations.
We adopt a wide range of theoretical perspectives, including Marxian, poststructural, feminist and post/decolonial approaches.
Urban and Community Geography
Urban and community geographers at Syracuse University examine urban landscapes, politics and processes in the context of broader struggles for racial and gender equality, social justice, and political and cultural transformations—and how are these themes are drawn into the creation and negotiation of the urban built environment and social fabric.
We use diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives, including historical, cultural, feminist, political and Marxist geographies.
Through Syracuse Community Geography, students interested in community-based research or community organizing have opportunities to work on participatory research projects with local, regional or international community organizations.
Research includes GIS mapping and spatial analyses to provide fresh perspectives on social issues, not just in Syracuse and the U.S., but also globally.
Recent Geography and the Environment Research
Research
Jan 22, 2026
Research
Dec 17, 2025
