College of Engineering & Mines

Updates for students, alumni, supporters and constituents

UND awarded NSF funds for flood research and Native American outreach

Taufique Mahmood
Dr. Taufique Mahmood, Associate Professor

NSF funds will be used to investigate the flood events over the last three decades and inspire Native American youth to water resources research

An NSF CAREER proposal by Dr. Taufique Mahmood received more than $440,000 from the National Science Foundation. The proposal, “EAR-Climate: Impacts of Recent Wetting on Cold Region Hydrologic Change in the Northern Great Plains”, will help us better understand future hydroclimatic changes by studying the past behavior of five headwater basins that drain into Devils Lake. According to the initial press release, researchers will study the relationship between surface water storage and hydrologic processes during a complete dry-to-wet — drought to deluge — or wet-to-dry — deluge to drought — cycle. In addition, the current study will conduct a series of field-based cold region hydrology workshops for Native American high school students and summer research for Tribal College students. These activities will develop baseline data for future climate change studies for the tribal communities, inspire Native American students into snow and water resources research, and raise community awareness about water security and quality under a changing climate.

“I am excited and looking forward to starting the project,” says Dr. Taufique Mahmood, associate professor in the Harold Hamm School of Geology & Geological Engineering (HHGGE) at the University of North Dakota College of Engineering & Mines. Dr. Mahmood collaborates with Native American communities across North Dakota and has extensive experience of working with the Native American graduate students and tribal college students (NATURE summer camps) at UND. Prior to joining UND, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan. His group’s research has been searching for the answers to critical science questions in cold and continental climates of Northern Great Plain (NGP), Rocky Mountain Range and High Mountain Asia (HMA) using field-based and remotely sensed observations high-resolution physically-based modeling.