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In an era of growing climate change challenges, the emergence of the innovative tool SnowMapper Central Asia is gaining increasing significance for snow cover analysis and monitoring in Central Asia. The SnowMapper Central Asia tool represents a unique web-based tool, developed with support from SDC.
This tool, a result of the fruitful collaboration between SAPPHIRE Central Asia (hydrosolutions GmbH) and CROMO-ADAPT (SLF) projects, leverages climate reanalysis data and the downscaling pipeline TopoPyScale, for high-resolution snow cover dynamics analysis. The SnowMapper CA stands out with its ability to provide detailed daily snow height and water equivalent outputs at a 500-meter resolution, factoring in topographical effects. It also features a 24-year snow climatology for comparing current conditions with historical data, aiding in real-time water resource management across 295 sub-basins in the region, including Afghanistan. The tool’s accuracy, which compares favorably to data from traditional meteorological stations, and its future enhancements, including a 15-day forecast capability and improved resolution, emphasize its potential to transform and revolutionize hydrological forecasting in Central Asia dramatically. This is of greatest relevance to the agriculture and hydropower sectors in the region.