ICBA generated the water data by using advanced remote sensing techniques to provide data that fed into models that produce information related to various elements of the hydrological cycle. The movement of water in the atmosphere, on land and underground involves complex energy exchanges. To capture process dynamics, ICBA used the Land Information System (LIS) developed primarily by researchers at NASA’s GSFC

 LIS is a high-performance land surface modeling system driven by energy and hydrological fluxes and assessment of atmospheric forcing factors (2m temperature and relative humidity, 10m wind speed, and surface radiative and rainfall fluxes). LIS includes data assimilation systems to provide the most accurate outputs. The atmospheric forcing data sets are downloaded from the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) and the remote sensing precipitation is accessed from TRMM or GPRM data.

The data assimilation system incorporates various data sets to optimize the accuracy of the outputs. Relevant sources of data include the following satellite-derived datasets:

MODIS surface temperature

AMSR-E or ASCAT soil moisture data (PROVIDE LINK HERE)

The MAWRED team at ICBA adapted the LIS model for the MENA region and added land use, land cover and irrigation intensity data generated for the regional scale at 5km resolution and on the country scale at 1km resolution. The data variables chosen for the knowledge hub reflect regional decision makers’ identified needs and reflect a focus on agricultural production in a region with few rivers.  The following indices are important indicators of potential crop and water system stress. For the anomaly data ICBA used data from March 2000 to February 2015 as the baseline.