08-25-2007 - Uncategorized

sagar: Author=’Eleanor Imster’ program=’5084′ video=”Drought affects nearly all of Afghanistan. High chronic food insecurity is indicated by green, long term drought by brown, and household food deficits and severe water shortages by orange. (FEWS.net)Afghan farmers get most of their water from melting snow. But reservoirs and canals designed to hold snowmelt have suffered from decades of conflict. There’s snow in the mountains, but how do you find out how much?

Mike Budde and his colleagues use satellites to monitor water available for food crops in Afghanistan. They’re part of the Famine Early Warning System Network.

Afghan farmers get most of their water not from rain, but from melting snow. In Afghanistan, the reservoirs designed to hold snowmelt have suffered from decades of conflict. There’s snow in the mountains, but how much? It’s important to know, so farmers can plan, based on how much water will become available each year as the snow melts.

But how do you monitor mountain snow in a place with an extreme climate and hazardous roads, a place where conflict and violence are common?

Mike Budde: _You can obviously understand that getting out to the field and assessing things firsthand is a difficult prospect there, so we rely very much on remotely sensed information._

Satellite images, combined with data about things like air temperature, allow scientists to estimate how much water is available each year.

That information is reported to the Afghan government and other relief organizations. Again, Mike Budde.

Mike Budde: _I think a big frustration is the fact that you’re limited in being only able to provide the information and not necessarily know if that’s being used to create good results or not._

Thanks today to “NASA”:http://www.nasa.gov/: explore, discover, understand.

Written by Eleanor Imster

3 Responses to “Private: Satellites aid food security in Afghanistan”

1. Ralph W. Frink says:

   June 24, 2007 at 1:11 am

   It has been several years since I made a comment here, but I want to let you know, this program is almost as good as going back to school. I have viewed it here on the computer, or listen on the local radio station almost every day for 27 years in Hawai’i. Turning 79 on Tuesday. Mahalo nui loa, thank you very much.

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2. Deborah Byrd says:

   June 24, 2007 at 4:55 pm

   Ralph, you made our day! Thank you so much.

   Warmest wishes from Earth & Sky for your 70th birthday!

   All the best,
   Deborah

   Reply
3. Blizzsard says:

   June 25, 2007 at 5:45 pm

   I like hearing shows about how the space program is helping people get enough to eat. You always hear people say that we are spending money on space that we could be using better here on Earth. They should hear this show!

   from:
   Blizzsard

   Reply