Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan) is experiencing major environmental changes. Glacier melt, landslides, above-average warming, earthquakes, and increasing water scarcity are changing living conditions and leading to an increase in natural hazards. Since 2008, our research has focused on various aspects of natural hazards, starting with the "Central Asian Water" (CAWa) project as part of the German Water Initiative for Central Asia ("Berlin Process"), launched by the Federal Foreign Office at the "Water United" conference in Berlin. In 2020, we launched the follow-up project "GreenCentralAsia," which continues our efforts.

In recent years, we have built up an extensive network of climate stationsthat work on the basis of our ROMPS concept. This data provides us with extensive information on current weather events, but also information about the climate in the long-term. Our stations, operated with our local partners, provide freely accessible data that can be accessed via the "Sensor Data and Storage System" (SDSS). The SDSS was developed and operated at CAIAG (Kyrgyzstan). Drawing on our extensive experience in satellite altimetry, we precisely derive the filling levels of reservoirs, lakes, and rivers and make this crucial data freely available via the SDSS.

In this project, we can contribute our expertise from the activities in the GFZ project Global Change Observatory Central Asia (GCOCA). In these programs, we research glacier outburst events (Glacier Lake Outburst Flood, GLOF) and use our observatory at Issyk Kul for the quality monitoring of satellite altimetry. The GNSS data recorded by the ROMPS are used for studies on plate tectonics, the seismometer data for the global GEOFON network and the glacier monitoring data for the work of the WGMS.

With the programs we have developed, we support numerous decision-makers in politics and society in cross-border water management and in predicting droughts.

Project partners:

• Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences (CAIAG)
• World Glacier Monitoring Service (https://wgms.ch)
• GIZ and Partners (www.greencentralasia.org)
• Hydrometerological services of Central Asia, Ulug Bek Astronomical Observatory Uzbekistan

Duration:

• CAWa: 2008 – 2019
• CAWa-GREEN: 2020-2024
• GreenCentralAsia: 2024-2028

Budget:

• CAWa & CAWaGREEN: Auswärtiges Amt
• GreenCentralAsia: GIZ GmbH
• Household, ACROSS Initiative und GCOCA Observatory

Publications:

• Schöne, T. et al. (2024). Performance Analyses of Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B Over Lake Issyk Kul (Kyrgyzstan). In: International Association of Geodesy Symposia. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. doi.org/10.1007/1345_2024_268
• Jaramillo, F., Aminjafari, S., Castellazzi, P., Fleischmann, A., Fluet‐Chouinard, E., Hashemi, H., Hubinger, C., Martens, H. R., Papa, F., Schöne, T., et. al. (2024). The Potential of Hydrogeodesy to Address Water‐Related and Sustainability Challenges. Water Resources Research, 60(11): e2023WR037020. doi:10.1029/2023WR037020.
• Zech, C., Schöne, T., Illigner, J., Stolarczuk, N., Queißer, T., Köppl, M., Thoss, H., Zubovich, A., Sharshebaev, A., Zakhidov, K., Toshpulatov, K., Tillayev, Y., Olimov, S., Paiman, Z., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Gafurov, A., & Moldobekov, B. (2021). Hydrometeorological data from a Remotely Operated Multi-Parameter Station network in Central Asia. Earth System Science Data, 13(3), 1289-1306. doi:10.5194/essd-13-1289-2021
• (Datenpublikation) Zech, C., Schöne, T., Illigner, J., Stolarczuk, N., Queißer, T., Köppl, M., Thoss, H., Zubovich, A., Sharshebaev, A., Zakhidov, K., Toshpulatov, K., Tillayev, Y., Olimov, S., Paiman, Z., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Gafurov, A., Moldobekov, B. (2020): Hydrometeorological data from ROMPS network in Central Asia. doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.2.2020.002
• Zech, C., Schöne, T., Illigner, J., Stolarczuk, N., Queißer, T., Köppl, M., Thoss, H., Zubovich, A., Sharshebaev, A., Zakhidov, K., Toshpulatov, K., Tillayev, Y., Olimov, S., Paiman, Z., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Gafurov, A., & Moldobekov, B. (2021). Hydrometeorological data from a Remotely Operated Multi-Parameter Station network in Central Asia. Earth System Science Data, 13(3), 1289-1306. doi:10.5194/essd-13-1289-2021
• Schöne, T., Zubovich, A., Zech, C., Illigner, J., Sharshedaev, A., Mandychev, D., Shakirov, A., Stolarczuk, N., Haghshenas Haghighi, M., Gerlitz, L., Gafurov, A., Moldobekov, B., & Lauterjung, J. (2019). In Situ and Remote Water Monitoring in Central Asia — The Central Asian Water (CAWa) Network. In L. Müller, & F. Eulenstein (Eds.), Current Trends in Landscape Research (pp. 599-610). Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30069-2_27.
• Schöne, T., Zech, C., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Rudenko, V., Thoss, H., Wetzel, H.-U., Gafurov, A., Illigner, J., Zubovich, A., & CeGIT Centre for GeoInformation Technology, Geoengineering Centres, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (2013). A new permanent multi-parameter monitoring network in Central Asian high mountains - from measurements to data bases. Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 2(1), 97-111. doi:10.5194/gi-2-97-2013