—Lisa Graumlich, University of Washington, Seattle

I am truly humbled and honored to receive the AGU International Award. I want to thank Lisa and the amazing cheerleaders George, Soroosh, and Ashraf for their enthusiastic endorsements.  No one person can have an “international” impact alone—it takes a community of colleagues, students, and stakeholders unified by the common goal to make science serve society better and faster. So this award really belongs to all my students—Shahryar, Nishan, Hisham, Indira, Claire, Matt, Safat, Xiaodong, among others—who went beyond their dissertation work and volunteered their time generously to build real-world solutions. This award also belongs to the numerous stakeholder agency staff around the world who were willing to walk with us hand in hand and to the vast community of scientists who were unselfish in sharing their knowledge to solve pressing problems related to water.  I often wonder what “international” really means today and what the role that science needs to play here is. We live in an increasingly connected world where actions in one place impact the livelihood and environment in another place. So, to me, “international” really means “everywhere”—wherever there is work to be done to make the region more equitable so that we leave no community behind and empower the marginalized who urgently need solutions grounded in science.  On final reflection of this award, I feel I owe a lifetime of debt to the people of United States of America, of which I am a naturalized citizen. Without this citizenship, it would have been fundamentally impossible to have this international impact for countries around the world. Yet I am reminded that this citizenship would have never happened without the Civil Rights Act that paved the way for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The international impact that I have had so far as a scientist therefore owes a huge amount of debt to the generation who worked and continues to work selflessly toward a more equitable America that now accepts people like me to thrive as scientists. I therefore must do my part to keep striving for a better USA because without an equitable USA, an equitable planet will never be realized. For me, the path to having an international impact runs through these United States. The onus is now on me to evolve as a better scientist mentoring future scientists who together can apply scientific discoveries to reduce inequities we have today for essential livelihood resources. Thank you. —Faisal Hossain, University of Washington, Seattle

Faisal Hossain received the 2012 Charles S. Falkenberg Award at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held on 5 December 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. The award honors a “scientist under 45 years of age who has contributed to the quality of life, economic opportunities, and stewardship of the planet through the use of Earth science information and to the public awareness of the importance of understanding our planet.”  

Faisal Hossain is an Earth scientist recognized for his research efforts to promote a remote sensing–based flood warning system for vulnerable parts of developing nations where data are scarce and institutional capacity limited. He has argued for a space-based data information system that leverages current and upcoming Earth science satellite missions and complements them on a common platform for water management. He has demonstrated that if prediction uncertainty could be characterized accurately, then the benefits of information derived from Earth observations could outweigh the costs for the 21st century, and these satellite missions could be path finders to more operational missions.

Along this line, Faisal has worked diligently to showcase the potential for socioeconomic benefits through applied research on current and upcoming missions. Although the topic of transboundary waters is already well researched, Faisal was the first to bring it to the forefront of AGU (through EOS) and demonstrate to the scientific community the potential benefits of spaceborne Earth science data. He has argued that satellite data on precipitation, soil moisture, surface water, and land use could overcome the widespread hydropolitical hurdles between riparian nations that do not have mechanisms to share basin-wide data otherwise on an operational timescale. In his 2006 EOS article (Improving flood forecasting in international river basins), Faisal showed through research on institutional capacity and geohydrologic location of various nations that there are many (at least 33 listed in his article) flood prone nations that can benefit from Earth observation data (precipitation in particular). This work was perhaps a key point in drawing the attention of real-world water forecasting agencies in developing nations to the value of spaceborne Earth science data in operational settings.

Since 2007, Faisal has been instrumental in establishing and leveraging Memoranda of Understanding for technical collaboration with stakeholder environmental management and operational agencies in developing nations. Through these mechanisms, he has promoted the use and value of spaceborne Earth science data in a two-way framework. His “forward” way has been to work directly with the operational agencies, train their staff, and demonstrate through hands-on exercises the value of Earth science data for predicting fluxes at regions that are either transboundary or lacking in situ monitoring. This forward approach is motivated by the need for capacity building to adapt to emerging technology. The “reverse” way uses the end results and experience from the “forward” way and feeds them back to the satellite mission community in order to demonstrate the potential economic benefits and suggest ways for tweaking mission planning to be societally more effective. This is an iterative education procedure that has made progress in giving research results and experiences the needed longevity to transform to societal applications for an otherwise very skeptical community of beneficiaries.

–Emmanouil Anagnostou, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut; Marco Borga, Department of Land and Agroforest Environments, University of Padova, AGRIPOLIS, Legnaro, Italy; S. M. MahbuburRahman, WRP, Institute of Water Modelling, Dhaka, Bangladesh; and C. K. Shum, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

I am utterly thrilled and humbled by this award. This is by far the highest accolade I have or will have ever received in my lifetime for something that has become a mission for me. I thank the AGU, Earth Science Information Partnership (EISP), and the Falkenberg Award review committee for giving me a never-ending source of inspiration. Thanks also go to colleagues who nominated me, namely, Manos Anagnostou, C. K. Shum, Marco Borga, and Mahbub Rahman. Let me start by quoting from the AGU: “Charles S. Falkenberg, whose research focused on enabling practical applications of Earth science through data visualization and information technology.” Such monumental achievement of Charles Falkenberg, on which this award category is designed, has been a source of constant inspiration to many of us. For me, it all began many years ago when I learned of the term “Valley of Death” that a funding agency once used to describe the often desolate ‘no-man’s land’ between research findings and their societal applications. Until then, it had never dawned on me that giving longevity to Earth science data and findings for practical applications could ever be even an issue. If it’s obvious to the scientific community that the research has societal importance and therefore merits publication, then why should not the beneficiaries (stakeholders) and the general public not view it the same way and start applying the products immediately? Like many before me, I realized that it is only when you cross the Valley of Death, you realize the significance of the term, the challenges and get overwhelmed with a humbling feeling. This humbling feeling is one that requires us to step out of our comfort zone, to listen more than to talk, and to understand the mindset of our target group of beneficiaries. I realized that, in order to grasp what the public or the beneficiaries really want from Earth science data to impact their lives or their agenda, a trial-and-error education process is required. The skepticism that many in the real-world harbor towards many types of emerging Earth science data and research findings needs to be addressed through education that solicits candid feedback from the beneficiaries and channels them back via our scientific community. With perseverance, the education challenges can be overcome to make our scientific community more inclusive of our stakeholders and beneficiaries through dialogue. Research devoid of this iterative education process often made me feel that I was only preaching to my choir. This award is a celebration of the contribution of all my friends and colleagues I have known and who have encouraged and helped me to cross the Valley of Death. So I dedicate this award to each one of them. Since it is impossible to list all of them by name here, I would like to mention just a few. They are, Doug Alsdorf, Dennis Lettenmaier, Ming-Ying Wei, Larry Smith, Ali Akanda, Ross Bagtzoglou, Christa Peters-Lidard, Azad Hossain, Sylvain Biancamaria, Hyongki Lee, David Huddleston, Dev Niyogi, Marshall Sheperd, Roger Pielke Sr and Sayma Rahman. Once again, I thank AGU, ESIP, and my colleagues who nominated me for this award. Thank you all! –Faisal Hossain, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee