Background Afghanistan - After 25 Years of Conflict More than 25 years of conflict has largely destroyed the Afghanistan natural resources organizations and their capacity to function for "public good" and to contribute to the economy of the country. Facilities, laboratories, laboratory and field equipment, and logistical support have largely disappeared. Despite the return of many employees of the ministries and agencies, after many years of absence, these organizations are practically non-functional because of a lack of activity, adequate facilities, equipment, instruments, furniture, vehicles, field equipment and supplies and funding. Moreover, many of the employees have missed the developments within their disciplines that have taken place during the past 25 years. For all practical purposes, one is starting over in the Afghanistan natural resources sector. The one really positive development in an otherwise discouraging picture is that during the conflicts Afghan scientists took much of the data and information gathered over many years to their homes or to safe havens and protected it. Since the beginning of 2002, much of these data and information (in the form of maps, reports, tables, charts, notebooks, etc) have been returned to the libraries within the government organizations. USGS has also identified additional data and information in locations outside of Afghanistan. This data and information, despite being dated, form the basis for conducting natural resources and hazards assessments and the development of geospatial infrastructure. The returning employees form the "core" group for capacity and institutional building or rebuilding of Afghanistan's natural resources sector. USGS in Afghanistan For more than 75 years, and in more than 100 countries, USGS has successfully completed capacity or institutional building projects or activities both at the management and technical levels. This includes collaborative efforts in Afghanistan in the '50s, '60s and early '70s. All of these activities have focused on mineral, water, and energy resources, hazards, remote sensing and mapmaking, and the distribution of geoscience information to the user community. A key to capacity building and institutional building in the USGS' view is the one-on-one, hands-on-approach used in all cooperative activities. Over the past 50 years, USGS has been involved in training more than 4,000 foreign scientists using a mix of the five items listed above. In Afghanistan, the earth sciences infrastructure must be almost completely recreated beginning with the organizations; organizational mission, structure, culture, and management; facilities; and revitalizing and retraining of the remaining technical staff. The rebuilding of this infrastructure is critical to the short, medium, and long term planning for and management of natural resources such as minerals, energy, water, agriculture, and geospatial infrastructure. The beginning, and most important step, in the recreation of the natural resources infrastructure in Afghanistan are the former employees who are returning. Second in importance are the facilities and the equipment and supplies needed to undertake earth science activities. Third in importance is the organizational mission, framework and environment in which the technical staff work. Last, but not least, are the logistical and budgetary support mechanisms to help, support and reestablish a viable, efficient organization whose focus is on "public good." All technical assistance programs of the USGS have institutional development as one of the major goals; such institutional development is essential to effective transfer of technology and to achieving long-range benefits for such programs. Close ties that develop between the USGS staff and foreign counterparts, though intangible, are significant benefits that accrue to the both the U.S. and Afghanistan governments over several decades. In this timeframe, these benefits may manifest themselves through data exchanges between the governments, development of joint scientific projects in future years, and working together on global resources issues, under international auspices, that impact the policy of both countries. Capacity and institutional building activities related to USGS international work commonly stem from, or are an integral part of, projects carried out under one of the USGS international programs. The training component is provided in a variety of forms:
The USGS proposed program for Afghanistan has been divided into two phases. Phase I is approximately 24 months in length, depending on the activity, and involves extensive use of existing data and information and intense collaboration with multiple Afghanistan government agencies, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations organizations, NGOs, and the British Geological Survey. Proposed Phase II follow-on activities are 24 to 36 months in length and are focused mostly on gathering new data and information that will enhance existing data and information and increase the quality of the assessments in Phase I. New data would be derived through fieldwork, satellite remote sensing, airborne geophysics and seismic surveys, drilling and coring, additional sampling, establishing stream gage networks, drilling of new water wells and installation of monitoring equipment, and extensive studies in ground and surface water quality and quantity. All of the USGS ongoing or proposed activities contain plans for training of Afghan counterpart scientists and technical personnel. The Oil and Gas Assessment project has already conducted training in Kabul and Sheberghan focused on oil and gas assessment methodologies, modern petroleum geology, computer sciences, etc. More is planned in this activity including bringing Afghan counterparts to the U.S. for additional training. Once funded, proposed USGS training activities in coal, minerals, water, earthquake hazards, and geospatial are planned both in Afghanistan and the U. S. These will include courses in English, computer sciences, resource assessment methodologies, GIS, and web-based databases. Training will be done with partners such as private companies and consultants, University of Nebraska-Omaha, Kabul University, Kabul Polytechnical Institute, British Geological Survey, UNAIMS, etc. Through the efforts of DOD, Embassy, and USGS, the renovation of the Afghanistan Geological Survey is slated to begin shortly. This effort will also include the installation of IT equipment in the newly renovated AGS building and at the Geodesy and Cartography Department. Proposed USGS activities are coordinated with numerous US Government organizations such as Departments of State, Interior, Treasury, and Defense, U.S. Embassy-Kabul and with USAID and the Trade and Development Agency (TDA). USGS also closely coordinates with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank as well as with the British Geological Survey. Within Afghanistan, our coordination has been with numerous Ministries including, for example, Mines and Industries, Water and Power, Water, Irrigation and Environment, Rural Development, Reconstruction, Transportation, Communications, Kabul University, UNAIMS, and numerous foreign government organizations (German, French, and Danish) and NGOs.
National Geospatial Infrastructure National Geospatial Infrastructure development is intended to support the reconstruction relief effort by identifying resource potential that will encourage industrial investments and employment opportunities in the Afghan oil/gas, coal, mineral, water and hazard sectors. The geological investigations proposed by USGS in Afghanistan will rely heavily on geospatial data and geographic information system (GIS) technologies. At the outset of the investigations, existing geologic maps, topographic data, and satellite image data will be assembled, converted to a common digital format, and distributed to assessment teams for resource evaluations. The small-scale geologic maps will be updated and improved using countrywide satellite mosaics. In high priority areas of special interest, new detailed geologic maps will be produced. We propose to build a fundamental geologic and geographic GIS for Afghanistan because (1) they facilitate more accurate and cost-effective resource evaluations, and (2) the positive findings from these geologic investigations will be evaluated by capital investors in terms of related economic themes, such as transportation infrastructure, population distribution, land use, water resources, environmentally sensitive areas, and political/administrative boundaries. Thus, the geospatial component of this proposal will not only satisfy the basic geologic requirements of the resource assessment teams, but will also satisfy the geospatial data requirements of agriculture, food security, trade, health, natural hazard mitigation, ecosystem management, and other sectors. In this way a major step toward the formation and management of an integrated national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) will be realized. Role of USGS The USGS is the leading United States Government agency having expertise in geologic investigations, resource assessments, and the development, analysis, and distribution of geospatial databases, maps, and derivative products. USGS is also host to the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), which establishes and promotes standards for geospatial data documentation and public access systems. In addition, the USGS has decades of experience in developing country-scale GIS databases and in performing major geologic mapping and resource assessment programs within the Middle East, Eurasia, Asia and South America. Objectives The primary objective of the USGS geospatial data activities is to: 1) develop an integrated GIS data framework for Afghanistan, which will provide the fundamental databases necessary for coal, oil, natural gas, mineral, and hydrologic resource assessments, as well as earthquake hazard assessments, but will also support most other activities related to reconstruction. This framework will initially consist of geologic and topographic map data, satellite imagery, accompanying databases, data documentation, and a system for the efficient archival, retrieval, and distribution of these data to the wider user community. These basic databases will then be updated and vastly improved by geologic and structural mapping at scales necessary for more accurate resource assessments. 2) help establish a national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) of present and future utility to the Afghanistan government, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and educational institutions throughout Afghanistan. Through our careful design of a geospatial data framework and our capacity building, technology transfer, and training programs, the baseline data gathered for the individual resource assessments would be maintained by counterpart agencies in Afghanistan and would be available to the larger community for agriculture, food security, trade, health, natural hazard mitigation, ecosystem management, water resources and reconstruction issues
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