Welcome
Faculty of Geology and Geography
The subjects Geology and Geography were introduced in the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” at the end of the 19 th century. They are the basis of education and science of Geology and Geography in Bulgaria. There are about 1200 Bulgarian and foreign students at the faculty. The teaching staff comprises about 90 high-qualified Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors. Educational and research projects are supported by 46 specialists with higher education. There are 3 degree levels – Bachelor, Master of Science and PhD. The school year is separate in two semesters, 15 week each, ending with examination session. The educational process comprises lectures, seminars and individual forms like reports, tasks, and laboratory practices. There are educational practices – at one place, or excursions to selected geographical tourism and geological objects. The Faculty of Geology and Geography gives opportunities for additional education and post-graduated qualification. In our faculty we have 4 specialties: “Geography”, “Tourism”, “Geology” and “Regional Development and Policy” (from 2005 year).
Geography
The Geographical University education in Bulgaria started at the beginning of 1898. At that time the Department of Geography and Ethnography was founded in the History and Philology Faculty. Nowadays the educational process takes place in five Departments.
Bachelor degree education takes 4 years (8 semesters). Its aim is to prepare wide-educated specialists in the field of Geography. The students could achieve pedagogical qualification. It allows them to work as teachers at secondary and high schools in Bulgaria.
Master Degree in Geography takes 3 semesters, 45 weeks. The candidates are ranked after the mean marks from the state exam, or diploma work and the arithmetic mean of all semester’s exams. The Master Degree Education is specialized and is conducted in different profiles. The choice of a profile is done at the application stage. When the candidates apply, they should rank profiles after their preferences. The following profiles for the Master Degree in Geography are proposed:
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Cartography
- Geomorphology
- Hydro-climatic Resources Management
- Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology
- Regional and Political Geography
- Regional Development and Management
- Human Resources Management
- Civil Registration and Administrative Servicing
- Geographical Education
The Doctorate Program (Ph.D.) in Geography is a three (four) year program and requires a pre-approved area of specialization. The following profiles are proposed:
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Cartography
- Regional and Political Geography
- Regional Demography
- Geography of population and settlements
- Physical Geography
- Social and economic geography
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Geographical information sciences are well presented in the Faculty of Geology and Geography. A new department – GIS and Cartography was founded in 2000. Significant scientific projects completed under the guidance, or with participants from the department include:
- “MICCPAM: Modules for International Countryside Conservation, Protection and Management – GIS&REMOTE SENSING MODULE” (1999-2001), SOCRATES grant for the Open Distance Learning Project № 70976-1-1999-1-UK-ODL-ODL; “Harmonization of the Bulgarian environmental legislation with the EU requirements” (2000-2001), financed by the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe
- “Assessing Bulgarian deforestation using remote sensing, GIS, and survey techniques” (2002-2004); NATO SCIENCE PROGRAMME Cooperative Science & Technology Sub-Program, COLLABORATIVE LINKAGE GRANT № EST.CLG.978637;
- “Pan-European geographic network HERODOT”, project financed by the European Commission
- “Assessment of the moisture condition in Bulgaria” (1994-1997 г.);
- “Chronological structure of the Bulgarian climate” (1995-1998), under the guidance of Assoc. prof. Dimitar Topliiski;
- “Landscape map of Bulgaria in scale M 1: 200 000 (1995-1998), under the guidance of prof. Petar Petrov, PhD;
- “Satellite map of Bulgaria in scale M 1: 300 000”,
- “Satellite atlas of the Republic of Bulgaria”,
- “GIS based spatial analysis and modelling of the accessibility to services in Sofa”, financed by the Bulgarian Science Fund;
- The project “Assessing Bulgarian deforestation, using remote sensing, GIS, and survey techniques” was awarded first prize at the autumn fair in Plovdiv, 2003 for scientific achievements.
- The Cartography and GIS department was awarded in 2003, for its scientific achievements, “ GIS University of the Year” by ESRI Inc. Bulgaria.
The main teaching and research activities include the following areas:
- Environmental management and assessment
- Thematic mapping
- Geographic Information Systems
- Spatial analyses and modelling
- Remote sensing
Education and research work in the department is done by using sophisticated computer equipment housed in a geoinformation centre which is equipped with Intranet and broadband Internet. The Cartography and GIS department is licensed to use the following specialized software products:
- For vectorization and data entry - MapInfo Professional, ArcGIS Desktop
- For spatial analyses and modelling - ArcView GIS 3.x; ArcGIS Desktop,
- For analyses, interpretation and integration of satellite imagery into GIS environment MicroMSI , PCI Geomatics, ERDAS Imagine 8.6;
The Department is equipped with the following specialized hardware: multimedia projector PHILIPS, plotter НР DesignJet 350 С, printer-copier Work Center XE 84, scanners А4 ACER S 2 W 3200 V, copier XEROX XC 23, projector 3М 9050, etc.
Due to the active cooperation between the Department and the local representative of Hewlett Packard in Bulgaria the equipment of a laboratory with modern hardware was arranged. Thanks to a grant provided by HP the geoinformation laboratory was suit with 14 Pentium 4 HP workstations, a multimedia projector and a 64 bit architecture Fedora Core 3 enabled server.
All disciplines taught within the Faculty are compatible with the European Commission ECTS standard. An academic year consists of 60 credits and a semester – 30 credits. MSc in GIS is organized in three semesters (90 credits). The table below gives an overview of all disciplines offered to students in GIS and Cartography:
|
Disciplines |
ECTS credits |
|
1. Geoinformatics |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
2. Theoretical Cartography |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
3. Topography |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
4. GIS |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
5. Fundamentals of Geodesy |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
6. Satellite Systems and Satellite Information |
5 /compulsory/ |
|
7. Research Project |
14 /compulsory/ |
|
8. Remote Sensing |
9 /optional/ |
|
9. Map Design |
9 /optional/ |
|
10. Map Publishing |
9 /optional/ |
|
11. Cartographic Fundament of Cadastre |
9 /optional/ |
|
12. Spatial Modelling |
9 /optional/ |
|
13. Application of GIS for Environmental Management |
9 /optional/ |
|
14. Application of GIS for Social and Economic Analyses |
9 /optional/ |
|
15. Analysis, Interpretation and Application of Satellite Images |
9 /optional/ |
|
16. Publishing Information Systems |
7 /optional/ |
Research interests
Our main research interests are in the following three interrelated areas:
Mapping is performed within the Department for various purposes, including both the production thematic and other various scale maps. There are rich traditions in the University concerning the preparation of maps. Graduates of the Department work for various mapping companies and within Governmental agencies that use and produce maps as part of their activities and duties.
The capacity of the department is constantly being built for the use of remotely sensed data for both data acquisition and analysis either in GIS environment or within the related remote sensing software. The Department is licensed to use ERDAS Imagine 8.6 and PCI Geomatics.
GIS is the most important branch of the activities of the department.
GIS professionals within the department are involved in the following concrete activities:
- GIS databases creation, integration and manipulation (incl. digitalization of hypsometry, hydrography, transportation networks, settlements, land-use, land cover, recreational features, industrial zones, pollution sources, etc.);
- Generation of digital models, representing natural and anthropogenic geographic features;
- GPS- registration and rectification of spatial data in GIS environment;
- Object-oriented GIS database development, for environmental management;
- Analyses, interpretation and integration of satellite and aerial imagery;
- Development of multimedia products based on virtual environmental models, incl. digital elevation models, etc.
- Creation of different cartographic products
- Various spatial analyses including location-allocation analysis, suitability analysis and site location, environmental management, analysis of the anthropogenic pressure on the environment, particularly in the wildlife-urban interface, geomorphologic and morphometric analysis by using DEMs, etc.
Cooperation with the Department
There are traditions within both the Department and the Faculty of Geology and Geography for cooperation with various Bulgarian and international institutions and universities. We welcome cooperation in the following main research directions:
1. Remote sensing – A NATO funded research project that won first place at the 2003 Plovdiv international science and education fair was accomplished within the department. The project involved the use of GIS, remote sensing and surveying techniques for the analysis of one of the most severe problems to the Bulgarian environment. The project can be continued by further develop the analytical methods and use a more precise spatial data.
2. GIS-based environmental risk assessment and mitigation (erosion, droughts, floods)
Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing concern that human actions and natural catastrophes have been adversely impacting the environment, and posing serious ecological and health hazards. This concern has led to an increased emphasis on environmental risk assessment studies within the Department of GIS and Cartography. GIS based software applications have been used widely for environmental risk assessment and analysis studies. The usage of GIS in environmental risk management ranges from development of databases/inventory systems, and simple to advanced GIS layers overlay, to complex spatial decision-making systems for study of the impact of air, water and soil pollution, ecological imbalance, and natural disasters on the environmental and human receptors.
3.Spatial analysis of the state of the transportation infrastructure and accessibility (location-allocation, cost-weighted allocation, buffering)
Various researches on transportation networks and interaction modeling have been performed during the recent few years. Different analytical techniques have been used in order to do so, including location-allocation, cost-weighted allocation, buffering, etc. A project for the analysis of accessibility to services in the capital city of Sofia is supported by the Ministry of Education, and is currently in its second year.
4.Suitability and site location analysis
Multi-criteria analyses aiming to find best locations for various types of features have been performed during the past years to support the informed decision making either in urban or rural environment for both business and other spatial objects.
5. Environmental management
Geography and GIS in particular are the key component for successful environmental management. The idea of using geography as the methodological framework to which environmental data can be attached based on its geogrpic location was the foundation that ultimately led to the development of GIS. Environmental management is constantly gaining attention with the increasde demand on the natural resoruces of the Planet. That is why most of the Department’s activities are in the field of environmental management.
6. Territorial referencing of quantitative data – GIS poses very good opportunities of the estimation of statistical data and for the territorial referencing of data that has already being collected. The integration of Census data, for instance, would create new analytical opportunities. The latest Population and Housing Census, conducted in 2001 has been territorially referenced within the department. Cooperation for the analysis and interpretation of the large volumes of territorially referenced data is very welcome.
7. Spatial data creation
Since spatial data is not rich for our country and because it is usually not of the necessary quality data capture, particularly from large-scale maps is very much needed, in order to speed up various spatial analyses.
It must be noted that we are open to all sorts of research cooperation, involving space as the research object and using GIS or other related techniques.
Contact information:
Should you have any concerns about the research and teaching activities at the Department of GIS and Cartography, or the Sofia University in general, please feel free to contact Assist. Prof. Alexander Kotsev at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , +359 888 43 44 98.
Relevant web sites
www.uni-sofia.bg/ - Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
www.uni-sofia.bg/faculties/geo/ - Faculty of Geology and Geography
www.gis.gea.uni-sofia.bg/en/ - Cartography and GIS department server
www.minedu.government.bg/ - Ministry of Education and Science
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