Abstract

Building Capacity in the Afghanistan Geological Survey
Track: Mining and Geosciences
Authors: Eric Wood, Siddiq Kalaly

In 2004, the US Geological Survey (USGS) began providing technical assistance to Afghan government ministries and agencies to help assess natural resources and to participate in the national reconstruction. This has involved to restoring and revitalizing earth science organizations, upgrading facilities, and retraining technical staff.

USGS is currently providing the Afghanistan Geological Survey (AGS) with extensive GIS training, focusing on recently developed data packages of nonfuel mineral deposits (20 to 50 digital layers of geology, geophysics, and hyperspectral and remotely sensed imagery for each of 24 key areas).

AGS, with the USGS, is developing an integrated GIS data framework for Afghanistan that consists of geologic and topographic map data, satellite imagery and accompanying databases, data documentation, and a system for the efficient archiving, retrieval, and distribution of data to a wide user community. AGS plans to have a fully functional data center in operation by the end of 2013.