Areas of interest
Maria’s research interests focus on climate change and variability and their impacts on glaciated environments and water resources. These interests fall into the following themes:
- climate change and variability predominantly in the extratropical Eurasia and in the mountains
- cryosphere, glacier change and climate-glacier interactions
- impacts of climate change on water resources in glaciated catchments and arable agriculture downstream
- glacial hazards: evolution of glacier lakes, glacier lake outbursts floods, debris flow
- impacts of light-absorbing impurities on snow and glacier melt with emphasis on desert dust
- environmental modelling including regional climate models, hydrological and glacier modelling
Postgraduate supervision
Maria currently supervises the following projects:
- 'Climate Change, Water Resources and Agriculture in Kazakhstan'. Funded by Bolashak International Scholarship, Kazakhstan.
- 'Water Use in Agriculture in South-eastern Kazakhstan and Its Adaptation to Climate Change’. Funded by Bolashak International Scholarship, Kazakhstan.
- Zarina Saidaliyeva: 'Assessment of snow, glacier and permafrost melt contributions to runoff in the Tien Shan using isotopic analysis'.
Recently completed:
- Hennen (2017): ‘Identifying Mineral Dust Emission Sources in the Middle East Using Remote Sensing Techniques’. University of Reading Faculty of Science Scholarship.
- Nobakht (2017): ‘Characterisation of Dust Sources in Central Asia Using Remote Sensing’. University of Reading International Scholarship.
Maria is keen to discuss PhD opportunities with students interested in assessing and modelling climate and glacier change and its impact on water resources and evolution of glacier lakes, meteorological aspects of glacial hazards, and modelling impacts of desert dust on snow and glacier melt.
Background
Maria is a climate scientist with a strong interest in glaciers. Maria has a combined BSc/MSc degree in Meteorology from Moscow State University (Russia) and DPhil in Climatology from the University of Oxford. She joined University of Reading in 1998.
Maria specialises in high-elevation climate change and in assessments and modelling of impacts of climate change on mountain glaciers and water resources. She led many international projects set in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Siberia funded by EU FP7, EU Horizon 2020, Newton Fund, UK Global Challenges Research Fund and other national and international funding bodies.
Most of her current work is conducted in the Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia. Among her experimental field sites is Tuyuksu Mountain Observatory located at 3440 m a.s.l. in the northern Tien Shan. She works in close collaboration with many regional research institutions, universities and stakeholders including regional disaster risk reduction agencies.
Maria is a member of Scientific Leadership Council of the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), an international research network with over 11,000 global membership. Her responsibilities at MRI include coordinating international Mountain Observatories project. She is a contributing author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), the chapter on High Mountain Areas.
Panagiotopoulos, F., Shahgedanova, M. and Stephenson, D.B. (2002) A Review of Northern Hemisphere Winter-time Teleconnection Patterns. Journal de Physique IV France, 12: Pr 10-27 - Pr 10-47.
Shahgedanova, M. (2002) Air Pollution. In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M (ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 476-496.
Shahgedanova, M. (2002) Climate at Present and in the Historical Past. In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M. (Ed). Oxford University Press, 70-102.
Shahgedanova, M. 'Air Pollution' (2002). In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M.(Ed). Oxford University Press. 476-496.
Shahgedanova, M., Perov, A and Mudrov, Y.. (2002) Mountains of Northern Russia. In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M. (ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 284-313.
Shahgedanova, M., Mikhailov, V.N., Larin, S. and Bredikhin, A. (2002) Mountains of Southern Siberia. In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M. (ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 314-349.
Shahgedanova, M. and Kuznetsov, M. (2002) The Arctic Environments. In: The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia: Russia and Neighbouring States. Shahgedanova, M. (ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 191-217.
Shahgedanova, M. (ed) (2000) Contemporary Environmental Politics and Issues in Transitional Economies. Special Issue of Environment and Planning B, 27 (3).
Shahgedanova, M. (2000) Environment in Transition: Better or Different? Environment and Planning B, 27 (3): 325-330.
Shahgedanova, M., Burt, T.P. and T.D. Davies. (1999) 'Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Oxides Air Pollution in Moscow'. Water, Air and Soil Pollution, 112: 107-131.
Shahgedanova, M., Burt, T.P. and T.D. Davies (1998). Synoptic Climatology of Air Quality in Moscow. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 61: 85-102.
Burt, T.P. and M. Shahgedanova (1998). 'An Historical Record of Evaporation Losses since 1815 Calculated Using Long-term Observations from the Radcliffe Meteorological Station, Oxford, England'. Journal of Hydrology, 205: 101-111.
Shahgedanova, M., Burt, T.P. and T.D. Davies (1997) Some Aspects of the Three-Dimensional Heat Island in Moscow. International Journal of Climatology, 17: 1451-1465.
Shahgedanova, M. and T.P. Burt (1994). 'New Data on Air Pollution in the Former USSR'. Global Environmental Change, 4 (3): 201-227.
Shahgedanova, M. and Burt, T.P (1993). 'Air Pollution Management in the Former USSR'. Perspectives on the Environment. J. Holder (Ed). Avebury, 167-179.
