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Science Applications

Science Application

The science application is a collection of innovative and integrated geo-based solutions to support informed decision-making for mountain development policies and practices. The applications are being developed largely within the framework of SERVIR-Himalaya, which features web-based access to GIS data and satellite imagery, decision-support tools, interactive mapping and visualization, with the aim of providing scientists, environmental managers, and decision-makers with easy access to information.

By Theme: By Region:

Status of Glaciers in the HKH Region

The comprehensive baseline information on the glaciers of the entire HKH region have been organised by major basins and sub-basins

Land Cover Dynamics in Bhutan

Nepal Disaster Information Management System

Disaster Information Management System has spatial profiling of historical disaster events and impact records that can be used to draw policy relevant information.

Glacier Dynamics in Nepal Himalaya

Glaciers are repositories of information for climate change studies as they are sensitive to changes in temperature, precipitation, and at-surface solar radiation.

Glacier Dynamics in Bhutan Himalaya

Glaciers are repositories of information for climate change studies as they are sensitive to changes in temperature, precipitation, and at-surface solar radiation.

Land Cover Dynamics in Nepal

Agriculture Atlas of Nepal

Digital agriculture atlas of Nepal provides free access to vital information for agriculture planning, research and overall economic development of the country. It covers vast issues including statistics on cereal crops, cash crops, legume, vegetables, fruits and livestock.

Forest Fire Detection and Monitoring System in Nepal

ICIMOD, in close collaboration with the Department of Forests of Nepal, has developed a forest fire detection and monitoring system for Nepal based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The work was supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the SERVIR-Himalaya initiative.

Snow Cover in HKH

The snow cover data is presented for 92 sub-basins from the 10 major river basins of the HKH. Users can view basin/sub-basin wise statistics of the snow cover for different elevation zones, slopes and aspects The snow cover maps can be displayed for a particular date or a specified time period using a time-slider tool.

Glacial Lake Inventory of the HKH Region

Glaciers and glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas have been essential natural resources providing fresh water to about one third of the world population. In the HKH also, as in many other parts of the world, glaciers are shrinking and glacial lakes are being formed due to the current climate warming

Land Cover Dynamics in Myanmar

Assessment and monitoring of land cover dynamics are essential for the sustainable management of natural resources, environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and developing sustainable livelihoods, particularly for the rural communities in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. The application provides easy access to the harmonised land cover data developed for HKH region of of Myanmar for 2010 and provides user friendly tools for generating statistics and to support the informed decisions.

Land Cover Dynamics in Pakistan

The application provides easy access to the harmonised land cover database developed for three of the four provinces of Pakistan that lie in the HKH region over different time slices (1990, 2000 and 2010) and provides user friendly tools for generating statistics to understand the change processes and to support the informed decisions.

Land cover dynamics in Greater Chittagong area

The application provides easy access to the harmonised land cover database developed for Greater Chittagong area over different time slices (1989, 2000 and 2010) and provides user friendly tools for generating statistics to understand the change processes and to support the informed decisions.

Emergency management and response system

The main objective of this project is to strengthen emergency response center of Nepal and to help institutionalize an integrated GIS based information platform (one window system) for emergency management and response in case of earthquake disasters.

Atmospheric haze monitoring in the HKH

The application combines near real-time MODIS visible bands (RGB product), and AOD (Aerosol Optical Depth) products to generate an air quality index. Information from NASA's AERONET stations is also integrated into the system.

Agriculture monitoring to support food security

Monitoring agriculture from space means looking at the green-ness to estimate how much photosynthesis is occurring on the ground. By comparing the recent vegetation conditions with the long term average, anomalies are determined to predict the increase or shortfall in the production

Decisions support tools for Central Karakoram National Park

The Decision Support Tools (DST) for Central Karakoram National Park has been developed by ICIMOD in collaboration with United National Environment Programme (UNEP) through a Small Scale Funding Agreement under the Karakoram Trust Project. The concept of DST was initiated as a collection of tools and methods to address the needs of different stakeholders to support key components of the decision making process.

Forest fire detection and monitoring in Bhutan

ICIMOD has developed a MODIS based forest fire detection and monitoring system for Bhutan in close collaboration with the Department of Forests, Bhutan. The system facilitates data acquisition, processing and reporting on fire location information in an automated manner.

Above ground biomass in Nepal

The application allows users to view, besides others, biomass products such as Above Ground Biomass, Maximum Canopy Height and Carbon Stocks raster data layers. In addition they can visualize VDC level available biomass, demand for biomass and balance of biomass datasets.

Decision Support Tools (DST) for Central Karakoram National Park

Decision support system for rapti river flood management.

REDD information system

he application allows users to view and monitor of Kayar Khola watershed covers an area of 8,002 ha at an elevation of 245 to 1944 m in Chitwan district in the central development region of Nepal. Mainly swiping tools allow visitors to see the changes spatially and social profile of each community forest level.

Rangelands decision support system in Pakistan

This application has been developed to help decision makers in rangeland management in Pakistan. The application allows visualization of various layers such as bio-climate, phenology, grazing pattern, and biomass & productivity. In addition, the application allows viewing of suitability ranking map for rangeland based on productivity, area, greening/browning or overall.

Climate change vulnerability and adaption strategies of forest ecosystem

The web app on climate change vulnerability of forest ecosystems provides information about the current relationships between climate variables and biophysical variables depicting functioning of forests. The application also provides VDC level information on the projected relationships between climate and forest functioning that gives us a better idea about impacts of future climate change, along with this the app also provides forest areas falling under different degrees of human dependence.

Multi level risk assessment for flood

Disaster loss data are helpful in understanding the cost and impact of disaster events, and thus helps make informed policy decision to formulate and implement effective disaster management plans. This system built on open source architecture provides interactive interface to analyze historical disaster event and loss data base to draw policy relevant information.

MODIS based ecosystem monitoring in the HKH regions

The application allows interactive visualization of vigour and phenology data layers of HKH region. One can view annual or quarterly data of mean/anomaly vigour, length of growing season, or annual number of growing peaks. A time slider tool is provided to allow users to view the data for different years between 2001 and 2013.

Multi-disaster information system

This application has been developed under SERVIR-Himalaya Initiative. The SERVIR Project, NASA, USAID and ICIMOD make no express or implied warranty of this application and associated data as to the merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Nepal earthquake 2015 - disaster recovery and reconstruction information platform

The NDRRIP acts as a unified hub for earthquake-related information for use by government ministries and departments and other stakeholders engaged in disaster recovery and reconstruction.

Glacier Dynamics in Afghanistan

The application showcases changes in the glaciers in Afghanistan from 1990 to 2015. The interactive glacier maps were prepared for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2015 using a uniform data set and methodology, which provide a scientific basis for understanding the changes taking place in the glacial environment in the Himalayas of Afghanistan.

Resource Accounting Tool

The application carries out all the analyses or geo-processings in Google Earth Engine, the Google’s cloud based platform, except for species occurrence data which are obtained directly from Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).