Yale Center For Earth Observation
Southwest Asia Project (SWAP)
Total Annual Precipitation Map
Description:
The South West Asia Project (SWAP) is a three year project at Yale Center for Earth Observation funded by the NASA/MTPE Interdisciplinary Science Initiative.
The objective of SWAP is to quantify and monitor the processes shaping the landscapes of Southwest Asia. This is a broad goal, requiring a cooperative effort from several groups at Yale (
Geology and Geophysics , Anthropology,
Forestry and Environmental Studies ,
Epidemiology and Public Health ,
and the Center for Earth Observation ), as well as collaborators from the SWAP region. We have an active collaboration with scientists from the
International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo. Several countries are included in the research area;e.g. Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, etc. The SWAP region has several unique environmental characteristics:
- a 6000 year history of environmental disturbance
- strong north-to-south climate gradient;mostly arid
- rapid population growth (3.4% per year)
- complex terrain, e.g. Dead Sea (-395m) to Mt Ararat (+5165m) and Damavand (5604m)
- multiple sources of water vapor; the Mediterranean, Red, Black, Caspian Seas and the Persian Gulf
- limited access to environmental data base
Topics:
Return to the SWAP page
Last update: 14 August 2001
Ongoing Projects