Published 08.10.2023 October 8 marks the 60th anniversary of seleved Doctor of Technical Sciences Yafyazova Rosa Kayumovna. After graduating from the Kazakh State University in 1987 with a degree in land hydrology, she began her career in the National Hydrometeorological Service of Kazakhstan as an engineer of the mudflow department. Participation in scientific expedition research in the Northern and Western Tien Shan, Pamir-Alai, Crimea allowed her to gain experience in studying the processes of the origin, development and degradation of mudflows, the impact of climate change on mudflow activity. In the future, this allowed her to lay the foundations of paleoselevology – a new scientific direction in selevedenie, although the luminary of selevedenie Yu.B. Vinogradov wrote back in 1977 in the book "Glacial breakthrough floods and mudflows": "Selevedenie as a science is going through infancy, as for "paleoselevedenie", it is still unknown whether it will be created at all."
R.K. Yafyazova developed a geological and geomorphological method for determining the genesis of sediments on removal cones. This made it possible to assess the change in mudflow activity in the past and predict its change in a changing climate – the basis of the strategy of economic activity and protection of the population for the coming decades.
She, in collaboration with the Doctor of Geographical Sciences B.S. Stepanov, for the first time described the mechanism of formation of ice mudflows formed on mountain rivers with a sharp drop in air temperature, developed a method for forecasting ice mudflows for the northern slope of the Ile Alatau, as well as a method of ultra-short-term forecast of catastrophic mudflows of rain genesis for the basins of the Kishi and Ulken Almaty rivers (Stepanov's method-Yafyazova). This method is ten times higher than the justifiability of the short-term method of forecasting mudflows of rain genesis, previously used in Kazhydromet.
According to the results of the research, more than 100 scientific papers have been published in Kazakhstan, near and far abroad, including a mudflow hazard Map of the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan and 3 monographs. Roza Kayumovna actively participates in international activities related to mudflow issues. She was awarded the Fleishman Medal by the Russian Mudflow Association for outstanding achievements in the field of mudflow studies.