Study plan

A student at the state doctoral exam demonstrates that he/she has mastered an in depth knowledge of Physical Geography, including appropriate techniques and skills. The aim is to examine both the level of knowledge and the ability to actively solve the specific scientific problem, including their complex understanding and application of corresponding analytical methods and synthesis. The student may enrol for the state doctoral examination at the earliest after all requirements in the Individual study plan has been fulfilled, but at the latest in the 5th semester. The defence of the Baselines of the Ph.D. thesis by a special opponent is a part of the state doctoral examination.

The oral exam includes questions from the three testing areas:
- General Physical Geography (components, processes, phenomena, holistic understanding of the Physical-geographical sphere)
- Methods of Physical-geographic research (data acquisition and evaluation, methods of their processing)
- Specific discipline from which the Ph.D. thesis is presented (methods, general knowledge, regional aspects, perspectives, scenarios, impacts)

Research activities:
- Ph.D. thesis preparation and publishing activity (min. 70 % of the workload) – takes place during the whole period of the study and its basis is in the publication aktivity. Publishing activity consists of at least three accepted scientific articles or applied outputs, such as approved method / software. For an example of scientific papers, at least one first-author impacted article (in the Web of Science database), another first-author article (at least in the Scopus or Web of Science database) and a co-author's reviewed article are required.
- Pedagogical activity (max. 5 % of the workload) – Ph.D. students participate in teaching by conducting seminars, field courses, selected lecture/s or preparation of study materials in the first 4 semesters. An integral part of the development of pedagogical experiences of the Ph.D. candidate is consultation and/or assessment of pre-gradual theses. The participation in teaching should not exceed 150 hours, it is performed during the first 4 semesters.
- Defence of Baselines of the Ph.D. thesis – must be completed by the 6th semester at the latest
- Foreign internship (min. 5 % of the workload) – must be completed by undertaking at least a 2 month-long stay during the study, or by an active participation in an international project for at least 2 years
- Attendance at conferences – active participation in at least two international conferences, of which at least one is in the form of an oral lecture, with the second one possible in the form of a poster

Professional courses (max. 20 % of the workload):

- Fundamentals of scientific work and preparation of scientific publications in Physical Geography
In addition, 2 of the 6 Physical-geographical study areas listed below should be completed:
- Geosphere (geology and geomorphology)
- Atmosphere (meteorology and climatology)
- Hydrosphere (hydrology, limnology and glaciology)
- Pedosphere (pedology, pedogeography)
- Biosphere (botany, zoology, (landscape) ecology)
- Development of natural systems (paleogeography, paleoclimatology, paleoecology)
Another 2 optional courses according to the Individual study plan (after approval by the supervisor and approval by the Doctoral board).

Use of damage records for the study of past hydrometeorological extremes and their impacts
Research of the function of biological corridors in southern Moravia
Climate forcing of Icelandic volcanic eruptions
Urban climate scenarios and heat waves occurrence according to model outputs
Geomorphologic development of the selected area in the Outer Western Carpathians (Moravia) with regards to present day processes and landscape protection
The role of natural conditions in complementarity of town and rural areas in the period of post-industrial society
Spatial and temporal variability of climate conditions on central Svalbard: Evaluation of surface observations and model outputs
Transformation of geomorphologic style of central European rivers in the period of anthropogenic stress
Aeolian processes in semi-arid maritime Antarctic environment
Modelling of erosion processes in small catchments