Yao Tandong, a geographer with the Chinese Academy of Sciences has won the 2017 Vega Medal for his research accomplishment on plateau glaciers and environment, announced the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG).

Yao Tandong. [File Photo: The Paper]

The award, widely considered as one of the most prestigious in the field, has been dubbed by some as the "Nobel Prize in geography."

Yao Tandong has now become the first Asian scientist to win this prize.

As President of the China Society on Tibet Plateau and the Chinese Academy for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Yao Tanfeng is widely regarded by those in the field as one of the leading scientists in the study of the cryosphere.

In the past twenty years, Yao and his team have been cooperating with scientists from dozens of countries, including the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland, to study environmental changes and their influence on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, reported The Paper.

Yao also initiated the Third Pole Environment project with international partners to study the environmental changes in Tibet.

The Vega Medal is awarded to one scholar every three years by the King of Sweden. The prize was started in 1881 and is issued by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography.