Facilities overview
Print version
The Department has committed substantial resources to supporting the computing needs of its postgraduate students, there are more than 1,200 PCs distributed around the College in its various Public Access Workstation rooms. You will also have access to the Department's two dedicated postgraduate computer laboratories with more than 30 regularly upgraded and networked PCs running a full range of appropriate software. Laptops may also be provided to facilitate flexible working. We have two laboratories dedicated to the work of the Environmental Monitoring and Modelling Research Group, their facilities are often used within the Department's undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes.
The EMM research Group also has an extensive set of field equipment, available both for short-term depolyments and longer-term monitoring studies. Much of this equipment has been significantly expanded and upgraded through a recent SRIF-2 infrastructure award.
Environmental Monitoring and Modelling Research Laboratory
The Department's Environmental Monitoring and Modelling Research Laboratory is equipped with multiple copies of specialist environmental modelling, remote sensing and GIS software, such as the SEEP and SLOPE finite element modelling packages, ArcView, Arc/Info, ENVI, IDL and IDRISI Kilimanjaro. This range of packages is updated and expanded as needs dictate, and further, more specialised packages are available on individual machines. Map digitising is accomplished using either scanning or a Calcomp A0 digitising table. With the KCL Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Geography Department also shares use of a dedicated high performance parallel processing computing facility, which is primarily used for intensive model simulations.
Qualitative Analysis Research Laboratory
The Department's Qualitative Analysis Research Laboratory has a number of regularly upgraded PCs, running Microsoft Office alongside specialist social science software packages such as AtlasTi or Nudist for the coding of qualitative data, and SPSS for statistical analysis. These computer laboratories are networked to the Department's three servers, which provide automated data back-up and other network facilities, as well as access to colour and B/W laser printing, tape drives, read-write CD/DVD, zip drives, scanning and digitising equipment, and a Hewlett Packard Jet A0 Printer capable of printing large colour posters.
