2012 Thacher Environmental Research Contest Winners

Arlington, Va. — June 5, 2012 — Heavy rains and severe flooding inundated Northern Virginia last September, damaging homes, sweeping cars away, and leading authorities to evacuate residents in certain areas. Such severe weather events are somber reminders of the need for accurate floodplain models.  These models are important to help communities in flood-prone areas anticipate and prepare for changes in water levels .

Inspired by local events like the recent Eastern US floods as well global events like the Attabad Lake landslide in Pakistan, Ahnaf Choudhury created and analyzed floodplain models in his winning entry for the 2012 Thacher Environmental Research Contest .

The Thacher Environmental Research Contest is an annual competition held by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). It challenges students in grades 9-12 to use geospatial tools and data to create innovative research projects.

“We are so impressed with these students and are confident that this new generation of leaders will truly exploit the benefits of Earth observations,” IGES President Nancy Colleton commented.

Choudhury, from South Riding, Va., input data from NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model into geographic information systems (GIS) to create a detailed unsteady-flow model. Similar models could be prepared to provide information on regions while topographic data is being manually collected, or for remote areas where topographic surveys may not be feasible. He received the competition’s first-place prize of $2,000.

The second-place prize of $1,000 went to 12^th grader Ehsan Jafree, from Ashburn, Va., who researched the correlation between land cover and stream health in Loudoun County, Virginia. Jafree created maps using ArcGIS to determine the impact construction in the last decade has had on stream degradation.

“It was easy to see the general trends between deforestation, construction and stream health ratings,” Jafree said, “but I wanted to determine key percentages of construction and forestation that would correlate with specific stream health values to help developers limit their impact on streams.” He hopes his results can be used to help environmental planning in the area, and will continue to pursue a career in science as a biochemistry major at Old Dominion University in the fall.

Paul David and Dillen Maurer, third place winners of the 2012 IGES Thacher Environmental Contest, collect data outdoors.

Dillen Maurer and Paul David, both 12^th graders from Glendale, Calif., worked together to win third-place and $500 with a study to determine the effect of protecting an isolated area from the introduction of invasive, non-native plants.

Maurer first became interested in learning more about invasive plants after attending a mountain biking association meeting during which the dangers of invasive plants were discussed. He and David have been friends since meeting in first grade, so it seemed natural for them to collaborate on this scientific research.

Each of the winning students’ teachers was recognized with a $200 gift card from Amazon.com.