A Central Asia hydrologic monitoring dataset for food and water security applications in Afghanistan

Earth System Science Data
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Abstract

From the Hindu Kush mountains to the Registan Desert, Afghanistan is a diverse landscape where droughts, floods, conflict, and economic market accessibility pose challenges for agricultural livelihoods and food security. The ability to remotely monitor environmental conditions is critical to support decision making for humanitarian assistance. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System (FLDAS) global and Central Asia data streams provide information on hydrologic states for routine integrated food security analysis. While developed for a specific project, these data are publicly available and useful for other applications that require hydrologic estimates of the water and energy balance. These two data streams are unique because of their suitability for routine monitoring, as well as for being a historical record for computing relative indicators of water availability. The global stream is available at  1-month latency, and monthly average outputs are on a 10 km grid from 1982–present. The second data stream, Central Asia (21–56 N, 30–100 E), at  1 d latency, provides daily average outputs on a 1 km grid from 2000–present. This paper describes the configuration of the two FLDAS data streams, background on the software modeling framework, selected meteorological inputs and parameters, and results from previous evaluation studies. We also provide additional analysis of precipitation and snow cover over Afghanistan. We conclude with an example of how these data are used in integrated food security analysis. For use in new and innovative studies that will improve understanding of this region, these data are hosted by U.S. Geological Survey data portals and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Central Asia data described in this paper can be accessed via the NASA repository at https://doi.org/10.5067/VQ4CD3Y9YC0R (Jacob and Slinski, 2021), and the global data described in this paper can be accessed via the NASA repository at https://doi.org/10.5067/5NHC22T9375G (McNally, 2018).

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title A Central Asia hydrologic monitoring dataset for food and water security applications in Afghanistan
Series title Earth System Science Data
DOI 10.5194/essd-14-3115-2022
Volume 14
Issue 7
Year Published 2022
Language English
Publisher Copernicus
Contributing office(s) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Description 21 p.
First page 3115
Last page 3135
Country Afghanistan
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