The remote sensing and GIS groups have access to high-specification UNIX workstations and associated peripherals, running a variety of software packages. Research in this area is concentrated on three main themes and there is noteworthy co-operation between this group and the Remote Sensing Group. Holocene Environmental Change is one of the major research strengths of the Department, using proxy records to reconstruct and measure long and short-term events, over the last 10,000 years. Other studies relate to drought and flood frequency analyses in Africa and Asia in more recent times. Other interests relate to such environmental hazards as landslides, hurricanes, acid rain, pollution of water supplies and the potential consequences of global warming.
Work ranges over a variety of tropical, Mediterranean and temperate situations.
The Migration Unit was established in 1992 as a University of Wales Research Centre. It seeks to promote the study of all aspects of human mobility at scales varying from international to local. Central themes of the Unit's current research programme are the mobility of powerless or outsider groups and the relationship between migration and social, cultural and economic change. The Retail Research Group focuses on the planning and policy implications of the retail revolution of the last twenty-five years. The impact of the new retail phenomena on the traditional system of shopping centres and associated shopping behaviour is being examined in South Wales and the West Midlands.