A research paper led by Buddhika Madurapperuma, a doctoral student in environmental and conservation science, was awarded the Best Paper and Best Poster Awards at the fourth International Conference on Geo-information Technology for Natural Disaster Management in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

The Asian Institute of Technology, Japan-Vietnam Geoinformatics Consortium, Geoinformatics International, Uva Wellassa University, National University of Sciences and Technology and the Association for Geoinformation Technology sponsored the conference. 

“The paper was a ‘leap-of-faith’ in addressing how high water uptaking, high saline tolerant agroforests may mitigate flooding within Devils Lake basin and in turn improve water quality while providing a natural floodwall preventing bank erosion or collapse,” said Peter Oduor, associate professor of geosciences and Madurapperuma’s academic adviser. 

The paper was co-written by Oduor; Janaka Kuruppuarachchi and Udhara Munasinghe of the Open University of Sri Lanka; and Larry Kotchman of the North Dakota Forest Service. 

USDA-Forest Service and Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Cooperative Forestry Assistance grants funded the research. 

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.