DEPARTMENT OF GEO-ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT MONITORING

Excerpts on the history of the department

Department of Nature Management and Conservation was organized in 1986 on the Faculty of Geography. V. Fedotov was the founder and the first head of the department.

In 2000, the department was renamed as the Department of Geo-ecology and Environmental Monitoring, and S. Kurolap became the head of it. While developing a new educational and scientific area in Voronezh University – for environmental protection and rational use of natural resources -  the department created a team of multi-skilled specialists in the field of general and applied ecology, eco-geochemistry and geo-ecological mapping, engineering fundamentals of environmental protection and ecology and landscape design .
During the 80s-90s of the last century, new cycles of special training courses in the field of geo-ecology, urban ecology and human ecology, bio-indication and bio-testing, remote environmental monitoring methods and geo-information mapping, environmental risks and assessment of the impact on the environment were dynamically developed at the department. Created by enthusiasm, energy and initiative of Vladimir Ivanovich Fedotov, a specialist in the field of anthropogenic landscape studies, rational nature management and environmental protection, the department immediately took a stable position in the structure of the faculty, providing higher professional geographic education with a pronounced environmental dominant. This fully corresponded to the spirit of the times, when specially authorized nature protection agencies (Goskomekologiya of Russia) started forming, environmental departments and services were established, which determined the necessity in training of specialists in the field of environmental protection and rational nature management. In the first years the staff of the department was not so numerous, and the main feature of the new department considered to be the uniqueness of each of its specialists, and this uniqueness still exists. The first staff string of the department included a number of well-known specialists: associate professor Nikolai Grigoryevich Bokachev - geodesist-cartographer; lecturer Galina Karpovna Chesnokova - professional engineer-cartographer with great practical experience; senior teacher Vladimir Dmitrievich Malyuchenko - specialist in the field of geodesy, aerospace and distance methods of environmental studies; associate professor Vasily Vasilyevich Protopopov – a hydrologist-meteorologist; senior teacher Klara Stepanovna Zatuley – meteorologist  with extensive experience in operational synoptic work; PhD in Biology Alevtina Ilinichna Fedorova - specialist in the field of eco-geochemistry and bio-indication; associate professor Anna Yakovlevna Grigorievskaya – geo-botanist and bio-geographer, who created a unique herbarium fund of the faculty.
Nowadays the department includes unique educational and scientific divisions: an ecological analytical laboratory, equipped for research in the field of ecological and analytical control of the environment, bio-indication and industrial ecology; laboratory of geo-information mapping, providing training and research in the field of electronic mapping and computer processing of eco-geodesics; herbarium of higher plants, containing about 12,000 species of vascular plants; educational and scientific-production center "Human Ecology", on the basis of which there have been organized complex scientific researches in the field of geo-hygiene and urban ecology in cooperation  with the Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Voronezh Region.
Profile of the graduates
The department trains geo-ecologists of wide profile for environmental protection services of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, environmental and analytical laboratories of industrial enterprises, design and survey organizations and firms, as well as educational institutions working in the field of environmental protection and environmental management. The training is conducted in accordance with the state educational standards for the licensed specialty "020804 – geo-ecology", and since 2011 "022000 - ecology and nature management". Graduates acquire great humanitarian education with the possibility of in-depth study of foreign languages ??and the foundations of environmental law; master the skills of applying modern computer technologies; receive an additional certificate with the right to teach ecology and geography in educational institutions.

Employment of graduates

After graduation, our graduates find work in practical organizations - regional environmental services and analytical control units of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, Russian Federal Service for Ecological, Technical and Atomic Supervision, Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, as part of administrative bodies, in environmental protection departments at enterprises, environmental analytical laboratories, Institutes and scientific-research organizations.

Research direction

The modern staff of the department actively develops research activities on topical problems of ecology and nature management:

• Eco-geochemistry and bio-indication of urban ecosystems;
• Medical geography and assessment of the public health risk associated with the state of the environment;
• Bio-geography, phytocenology and receptor urban floristics;
• Geo-information mapping.