This degree programme will be offered for the first time in the winter semester 2025/26. Information on content will be added on an ongoing basis.
Physical Geography: Environmental Dynamics and Sustainability (Master)
The aim of the Master's degree programme in Physical Geography: Environmental Dynamics and Sustainability at the University of Vienna is to train graduates who are able to identify and analyse challenges, changes and complex problems in physical geography from a scientific perspective and to develop proposals for solutions. The programme deals with current theory-based geographical research on the causes and consequences of environmental change in the context of sustainability from a national and international perspective as well as with the relevant practical applications. The teaching of scientific work as well as methodological and specialist skills is achieved by combining cross-specialisation work and analysis techniques. The skills taught in this way reflect physical geography with its scale-dependent, spatio-temporally explicit approaches to environmental dynamics and sustainability. Graduates acquire skills from relevant areas of the chosen specialisation (Earth Surface Dynamics and Management or Geoecology).
Master of Science
Degree Programme Code: 066 551
4 semesters / 120 ECTS Credits
NO entrance examination
Admission Procedure
Information about the admission procedure
Admission requirements
Admission to the program requires completion of qualitative admission requirements in the prerequisite programme, for example via the extension curriculum Geography: Environmental Systems in Transition in combination with either one of the three extension curricula Geography: Climate Change, Geography: Natural Hazards, Vulnerabilities and Disasters, or Ecology: Relationship between Organisms and the Environment (all informations in German).
Information on Previous Studies:
In any case eligible degree programmes at the University of Vienna:
Study Programme
The master's programme consists of the following compulsory modules:
- Geography Pool (20 ECTS)
- Pool Physical Geography: Environmental Dynamics and Sustainability (15 ECTS)
- Alternative compulsory modules specialisations (35 ECTS)
- Geoecology (35 ECTS)
- Earth Surface Dynamics and Management (35 ECTS)
- Individual Specialisation (25 ECTS)
as well as the Master's Thesis (20 ECTS) and the Public Defence (5 ECTS).
After Graduation
The fields of activity of graduates of the Master's degree programme in Physical Geography: Environmental Dynamics and Sustainability include, among others:
- Research and development
- Activities at national and international level in administration, the public sector and the NGO sector
- Environmental and protected area management
- Nature and disaster protection
- Resource protection and management as well as areas of waste management
- Planning and implementation of measures in engineering and planning offices in the private sector