Environmental monitoring in Afghanistan’s national parks – regional challenges and global implications

Afghanistan’s national parks are of vital important for large-scale hydrology and harbor vulnerable species and pristine vegetation communities. Long-term monitoring measures are crucial to assess ecosystem changes and provide basic information for sustainable planning. However, the remote location also leads to a lack of meteorological infrastructure and reliable geoscientific data. Additionally, low-vegetation cover due to the cool arid or semi-arid climate limits common remote sensing approaches. This lecture will focus on associated research challenges and will connect respective results to scientific issues of global relevance by linking extensive field data and various globally available spatial products. Gridded climate datasets are frequently used in peripheral regions and the presented results indicate that existing evaluations may be biased in space and time. Furthermore, suitable products for geoscientific applications in remote areas and their limitations are discussed. Modeling of biophysical variables with space-borne remote sensing sensors emphasizes the need for large spectral resolutions in dryland remote sensing research and the importance of regionally adapted vegetation indices. Finally, results indicate promising indirect climate variables for future monitoring approaches.

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