This "Nile LDAS" will produce optimal estimates of hydrological states and fluxes, as vetted against the in situ observations of NBI and MWRI and against diagnostic ET and moisture estimates produced using the USDA's Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) remote sensing technique. Together, Nile LDAS and ALEXI will provide high-quality, near real-time distributed inputs for the NBDSS and NFS. This will improve DSS reliability in applications that include flood warning, reservoir management, and irrigation planning.
Geographic Focus
Nile Basin
Application Readiness Level
Principal Investigator
B. Zaitchik (PI, Johns Hopkins University)
Project Team
S. Habib (NASA/GSFC), V. Koren (NOAA), M. Anderson (USDA), M. Ozdogan (U. Wisconsin), E. Viala6 (USAID)
Collaborators & Stakeholder
B. Attia (Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Cairo, Egypt),
A. Seid (Water Resource Planning and Management Project, The Nile Basin Initiative, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia),
A. Salzberg (Office of Environment and Conservation, US Department of State, Washington, DC),
S. Abdel Dayem (Arab Water Council, Cairo, Egypt),
F. Policelli (NASA/GSFC), M. Rodell (NASA/GSFC),
N. Harshadeep (The World Bank, Washington DC)
Technical Summary
Accurate, frequent, and spatially-distributed estimates of the water balance are necessary for effective water management. This creates a challenge for watersheds that are large, include data poor regions, and/or span multiple nations. All of these descriptors apply to the Nile River basin, yet successful management of the Nile is critical for development and political stability in the region. For this reason, improved hydrological data to support cooperative water management in the Nile basin is a priority for USAID and the State Department. Recent years have seen progress towards such cooperative management. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has established a Nile Basin Decision Support System (NBDSS) that engages all ten riparian nations in water management and planning. The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI), meanwhile, has worked with NOAA to develop a Nile Forecast System (NFS) for the Aswan High Dam. The NBDSS and the NFS are sophisticated tools supported by skilled technical staff, but both suffer from a significant deficit in distributed hydrological information. In the proposed project, NASA earth observations will be merged with advanced land surface models in a Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) customized for the Nile basin. This "Nile LDAS" will produce optimal estimates of hydrological states and fluxes, as vetted against the in situ observations of NBI and MWRI and against diagnostic ET and moisture estimates produced using the USDA's Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) remote sensing technique. Together, Nile LDAS and ALEXI will provide high-quality, near real-time distributed inputs for the NBDSS and NFS. This will improve DSS reliability in applications that include flood warning, reservoir management, and irrigation planning. The proposal is responsive to Applied Sciences 2008 priority areas of Water Management -- particularly in its relevance to The Paul Simon Water Act for the Poor -- and Agriculture, under the Water for Agriculture sub-topic. Our primary operational partner is the USAID Office of Middle East Programs, which offers considerable expertise on the practice and political context of water management in the Nile basin.