USGS Helps Assess Water Resources in Afghanistan
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
US Geological Survey Scientists along with AGS Made Effortsto Build an Inventory of Afghanistan's Wtaer Resources
A newfact sheetdetails how these efforts help the country quantify and monitor its water resource.
"This partnership with the Afghanistan Geological Survey and other international agencies is extremely important for Afghanistan," said Jack Medlin, USGS regional specialist, Asia and Pacific Region. "There's a broad consensus that water availability is a global issue, and these collaborative efforts created the data collection networks necessary to help quantify water conditions in the region and manage future water supplies."
A number of success stories were realized during this decade-long partnership.
In 2004, USGS and AGS initiated plans to rebuild Afghanistan's capacity for various geologic sciences including hydrology. USGS accomplished the goal with teaching scientists from AGS to apply modern techniques for use of global positioning systems, field hydrology, water-quality sampling, and by developing water-resource databases.
The first efforts of the partnership were to inventory groundwater and surface water resources in Afghanistan's capitol city, Kabul. After inventorying about 150 wells in the first year, data from a subset of wells weremonitored over ten yearsand indicated that water levels were decreasing in the city of Kabul. The water samples collected and analyzed for physical, chemical, and microbiological properties formed the basis of the first joint hydrologic investigation in Kabul.
USGS assisted a World Bank effort to restore approximately 127 historical streamgages in Afghanistan with modern equipment and continues to monitor the country's hydrologic network.
In the early days of the partnership, the USGS helped establish the Afghanistan Agrometerology Program. By 2014, the program had installed and was operating 102 stations recording precipitation amounts, snow cover, and other meteorological parameters that are crucial for calibrating and validating remote sensing models of Afghanistan.
A focus of the most recentresearchwas to quantify and monitor water resources in the Chakari Basin, a watershed near Kabul and an area that contains considerable copper and other mineral resources.
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