Remote Sensing Products and Data Integration

For assessing and analyzing water availability and water use in Central Asia, objective, spatial, and time series data are necessary. Such data at a regional level can only be obtained by using remote sensing.

The aim of work package 5 is to analyze information on land use and land cover and their changes in space and time from remote sensing data. Furthermore, remote sensing data are used to assess parameters of the hydrological cycle including vegetation characteristics, evapotranspiration, temperature, soil moisture, and snow cover. The derived information is used in the hydrological modeling to assess water availability (WP2) and water use (WP3) and will be integrated in the CAWa information system ELVIS (WP6) to make it easily accessible to scientists, water managers and decision makers.

The specific objectives of work package 5 are to use remote sensing data to analyze and monitor:

• Spatio-temporal land cover changes in Central Asia
• Spatio-temporal changes in vegetation characteristics and soil moisture in Central Asia
• Albedo and leaf area index (LAI)
• Spatio-temporal changes in snow cover and thermal characteristics
• Irrigated agriculture along the Amudarya river using time-series information on agriculture
• All the results and further remote sensing data will be integrated into the CAWa information system ELVIS.

Land use and land cover classification of the Amudarya delta in 2004 (University of Würzburg 2010)

WP 5 is coordinated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and carried out by DLR and the University of Würzburg. The partners in WP 5 include the German Research Centre for Geoscience (GFZ), Central Asian Institute of Applied Geosciences (CAIAG) in Bishkek, Centre for international development and environmental research (ZEU), ZEF-Khorezm Project, Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Coordination Water Commission (SIC-ICWC) in Tashkent, Central Asian National Hydromet Services and associated project partners.

Contact:
Dr. Ursula Gessner
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Phone: +49 8153 28-1250
Email: ursula.gessner@dlr.de