Abstract

Watershed Assessment to Identify Potential Water Resource Projects in Afghanistan
Track: Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
Authors: Cary Sanders

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) engineering department has been working closely with the Afghanistan provincial governments to assess the condition of watersheds across the country and to identify potential water resource projects in the areas of irrigation, flood reduction, erosion control, water supply and hydropower. GIS tasks for this work included vector, imagery and digital elevation model (DEM) data collection, geo-process development, and generating final mapping products. Data produced and collected were high-resolution color and multispectral satellite imagery; detailed DEMs; available land-cover and soils data; available surface water, groundwater, and meteorological data. Map products produced included a multitude of individual site maps and regional, provincial and watershed-based site location and political maps. Another GIS task was data management of all of the data layers, imagery, maps and engineering-created data. Without ESRI products, none of this would have been possible in the time frame and resources available.