Focus on the Positive

ucl.ac.uk/silva/rdr/people/shams">Dr. Mohammad Shamsudduha ("Shams"), a Research Fellow in the Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, has recently won a runner-up prize (£1,000) in UCL's public engagement event Focus on the Positive for successfully pitching a research idea of installing hand-operated tubewells for vulnerable rural communities in coastal Bangladesh. The title of his pitch was "Finding Sources of "Fresh" Drinking Water for Communities in Coastal Bangladesh." Shams was one of 4 competitors who pitched their ideas to an audience of 60 very engaged people from the University of the Third Age (U3A). The prize money will be used to install two hand-operated deep (depth >250m) tubewells in the coastal region of Bangladesh where there is a severe scarcity of 'fresh' drinking water as most surface water and groundwater sources are contaminated with high salinity. Shams is currently working on a UK-AID (former DFID)-funded research project (Groundwater resources in the Indo-Gangetic Basin: resilience to climate change and pumping) in Bangladesh and West Bengal of India. Under this project, Shams and his colleagues from UCL, Bangladesh and India are investigating the security of deep groundwater in the Bengal Basin in the face of climate change and human development.

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