Sources of data

There are many useful sources of data that can be used in monitoring and modeling water and agricultural resources. These are some of the most useful and accessible ones we have found:

Satellite imagery
Digital Elevation Model data
Agriculture Data
Crop Monitor Assessments: Provides AMIS with  crop (wheat, maize, rice, and soy) growing conditions, status, and agro-climatic conditions, likely to impact global production. The system is operational since September 2013. (http://geoglam-crop-monitor.org/pages/monthlyreport.php).
Climate data
  • Actual Evapotranspiration: The USGS FEWS NET Data Portal provides access to geo-spatial data, satellite image products, and derived data products in support of FEWS NET monitoring needs throughout the world. http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews
  • CFS: The CFS version 2 was developed at the Environmental Modeling Center at NCEP. It is a fully coupled model representing the interaction between the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land and seaice. (http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/ )
  • Climate Explorer: This web site collects a lot of climate data and analysis tools. From daily to monthly climate observations and indicies at the ground observation stations. (http://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi?id=someone@somewhere)
  • CRU: The Climate Research Unit has developed a number of the data sets widely used in climate research, including the global temperature record used to monitor the state of the climate system, as well as statistical software packages and climate models. The data include mainly rainfall and temperature at 50 km resolution from 1901 to near-present. (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru )
  • CHIRPS: starting in 1981 to near-present, CHIRPS incorporates 5 km resolution satellite imagery with in-situ station data to create gridded rainfall time series for trend analysis and seasonal drought monitoring. (http://chg.geog.ucsb.edu/data/chirps/ )
  • ERA-Interim: ERA-Interim is a global atmospheric reanalysis from 1979, continuously updated in real time. (http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-full-daily/ )
  • GFS: The Global Forecast System (GFS) is a weather forecast model produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). It provides global forecast up to 16 days at 28Km resolution. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/model-data/model-datasets/global-forcast-system-gfs )
  • GLDAS: The goal of the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) is to ingest satellite and ground-based observational data products, using advanced land surface modeling and data assimilation techniques, in order to generate optimal fields of land surface states and fluxes (Rodell et al., 2004a). (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/services/grads-gds/gldas )
  • GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is an international satellite mission (NASA and JAXA) to provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours. (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GPM/main/index.html ) to download data go to (http://pmm.nasa.gov/data-access/downloads/gpm)
  • TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (or TRMM) is a NASA satellite is particularly devoted to determining rainfall in the tropics and subtropics of the Earth from 1998-Present. (ftp://trmmopen.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/merged/)
Climate change data

CORDEX: Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment is an international project, founded by the World Climate Research Programme, which aims to coordinate international efforts in regional climate downscaling. Domains that interest MENA region are (MNA, AFRICA, WAS and EUR. (http://pcmdi9.llnl.gov/esgf-web-fe/live# )

CMIP5: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 provides global climate data up to 2300 to assess the climate change in the past and the future. (http://pcmdi9.llnl.gov/esgf-web-fe/live#)