Environment

Studying something you love makes it a joy to complete a degree program.

That’s how Alia Fatima describes her time working on a degree in Geography and Environmental Management in the Faculty of Environment at Waterloo.

“I’m passionate about making the world a better place, and I’ve come to see how environmental policy has a direct influence on communities,” she says. “In the end, it all comes down to people. I’m interested in human geographies and in the ways that environmental impacts affect people.”

Canadians think they know a lot about snow. It is practically a national pastime to discuss winter weather.

But a PhD student in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo is taking the Canadian obsession with weather to a whole new level.

Fraser King is studying the ways machine learning can be applied to predicting patterns of precipitation, and especially annual snowfall and snowmelt in the context of climate change.

Humans throughout history have dreamed of reaching out and touching the stars. Thanks to a unique collaboration with the University of Waterloo, Students at Riverview Highschool in New Brunswick can do just that — with a little help from a ladder.

On July 1st, 2022, the Faculty of Environment will say farewell to Jean Andrey, fondly called Dean Jean, our esteemed dean of eight years. The whole community wishes her the best in her retirement as we reflect on all her accomplishments and contributions to the Faculty.

Jeremy Pittman, a professor of Planning in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, was recently appointed as a member of new federal Nature Advisory Committee (NAC), created by Environment and Climate Change Canada to foster ways for Canadians to engage positively with our natural environment.

The University of Waterloo and the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC) are hosting their 50^th anniversary banquet on June 2, 2022, to celebrate their partnership and accomplishments.

The end of every academic year is an opportunity for students at Waterloo to bid farewell as they move on with optimism to explore life after school. For some, the experiences they had during their program will shape the life they lead after graduation.

A recent publication, co-authored by Dawn Parker of the Environment’s School of Planning and Waterloo’s Institute for Complexity and Innovation, reveals 10 facts that help explain the fundamental challenges of achieving sustainability in land use, and point toward solutions.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the article applied the expertise of 50 leading land use scientists from 20 countries and highlights key questions whose answers are essential to understand and address land systems pressures.

What a milestone achievement for Madeline Schizas, a student of Urban Planning at the Faculty of Environment, Waterloo! She competed at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics recording a personal best of 69.60 points in the women’s short program portion. 

Schizas is a competitive skater. The 19-year-old from Oakville, Ontario in her first Olympics accomplishment lifted Canada to fourth from sixth and moved the country into the five-team final round of the figure skating.

O’Neill didn’t come up with the term botanical sexism, but ensuring that more strategy and consideration of future needs for tree planting efforts make up a number of the 12 recommendations in a nationally-applicable Practice Guide created by her and colleagues — all Planning graduate students, to help guide municipalities towards more sustainable tree management.