Welcome to the website of the Department of Landscape Protection and Environmental Geography!
In the last two decades, the profile of our department has increasingly focused on complex landscape research and soil studies, as well as environmental and landscape conservation. We offer a range of environmental courses for full-time geography students and graduates applying for further education. These courses teach students the basics of environmental management and protection, environmental impact assessment from field sampling to laboratory analysis, global and domestic environmental problems and the legal and institutional background to become an environmental officer in a company or a local authority. The department's staff, together with students, are involved in mapping specific landscape values, conducting landscape ecology and soil science research, investigating the environmental impact of renewable energy sources, the quality of soils, surface and groundwater, and the impact of landfills and other polluting sources.
Between 1972 and 1977, the most detailed complex landscape analysis work of the Bodrogkeresztúr Basin was carried out by the landscape research group of the Department of Economic and Regional Geography, organised around Zoltán Pinczés, with the participation of Katalin Martonné Erdős, Attila Kerényi and Péter Csorba. In their later research, landscape conservation, landscape ecology and environmental protection played an increasingly important role. The Department of Applied Landscape Protection Geography was established in 1991 under the leadership of Attila Kerényi.
The department's scientific activities were the basis for the 5-year geography course in landscape conservation, which graduated 96 students from 1998 until the introduction of the two-level (BSc/MSc) higher education. The department's research has increasingly focused on the geographic aspects of environmental issues, while adult training for environmental experts has been introduced. In 2003, the department, then under the leadership of Péter Csorba, was renamed the Department of Landscape Protection and Environmental Geography. In 2006, the department started the environmental geography and tourism specialisation of the undergraduate geography degree programme, which graduated 120 students between 2009 and 2020. Since 2008, the department has coordinated the postgraduate training course in environmental and development expert, which has graduated 136 students. Since 2018, the former is also offered in the form of dual training, in which our partners are AKSD Waste Management Company of Debrecen and Lenerg Energy Agency Company.
Dr. György Szabó, Associate Professor (Head of Department)