🆕 Policy Brief No. 01 now available — Afghanistan Water Security: Crisis, Data and the Path Forward
Pillars Tools Publications Data Sources Contribute About Collaborate
Open Knowledge · Open Data · Open Tools

Building the knowledge infrastructure
for Afghanistan

ADI is an independent research and data platform — free, open access, and built across six development pillars for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers worldwide.

6Pillars
0Live tools
0Policy briefs
FreeAlways open
Six Pillars

Every dimension of development

ADI covers Afghanistan's development challenges comprehensively — from soil health to governance, from energy to education.

🌾

Agriculture & Food Security

Crop suitability mapping, food security indicators, Khosh Tepa canal data, precision agriculture tools, and rural livelihood analysis.

Soil healthCrop mappingSoilSenseFood systems
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Water & Environment

Kabul groundwater crisis, river basin management, land degradation monitoring, climate adaptation analysis, and disaster risk mapping.

GroundwaterLDNWaterSenseClimate

Energy

Solar and hydro potential mapping, rural electrification data, energy access gap analysis, renewable policy briefs, and infrastructure overlays.

Solar mappingHydroRural accessRenewables
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Economy & Trade

GDP and sector analysis, export diversification, trade corridor data, mining resource maps, FDI environment briefs, and value chain analysis.

GDPTradeEconomySenseMining
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Governance & Policy

Policy brief series, SDG progress tracking, aid effectiveness data, institutional analysis, rule of law indicators, and development finance.

Policy briefsSDGsAid dataGovernance
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Education & Society

Literacy and enrolment data, women's rights indicators, youth employment, brain drain analysis, diaspora engagement, and digital access gaps.

EducationWomen's rightsYouthDiaspora
Open Source Tools

Built for real decisions

Interactive dashboards — free to use, open source, built for field workers, researchers, and programme managers.

Live

SoilSense

Full screening-level soil assessment for any location across 124 countries — soil health score, erosion risk, degradation probability, and FAO-grounded recommendations in under a minute.

Launch SoilSense →
Live

WaterSense

Afghanistan water security deep dive and global dashboard — Kabul groundwater crisis, river basin data, and live World Bank water indicators for 80+ countries.

Launch WaterSense →
Live

EconomySense

Afghanistan economic dashboard — GDP trends, trade and exports, poverty indicators, and economic development data. Live from World Bank API with global country comparisons.

Launch EconomySense →
Coming soon

CropZone Mapper

Geospatial crop suitability and irrigation potential mapping for Afghanistan — supporting Khosh Tepa canal zone planning and agricultural development decisions.

In development
Coming soon

EnergySense

Solar and hydro potential mapping for Afghanistan — rural electrification gaps, renewable energy potential, and infrastructure overlay analysis.

In development
Coming soon

ADI AI Assistant

Ask questions about Afghanistan development in natural language — get data-driven answers instantly from live APIs for field officers and researchers.

In development
Research & Publications

Policy briefs & research notes

Evidence-based analysis and policy recommendations — freely available to practitioners, researchers and policymakers.

📋 Policy Brief No. 01 · May 2026

Afghanistan Water Security: Crisis, Data and the Path Forward

Maiwand Jan Alamzoi · FAO UN Roster Specialist · ADI

Kabul groundwater depletes at 3m/year. Only 36% of Afghans have safe water access. 13 policy recommendations across three timeframes with practical data tools for implementation support.

📋 Policy Brief No. 02 · Coming July 2026

Afghanistan Soil Degradation: Assessment and Recovery Pathways

Afghanistan Development Initiative · In preparation

Soil health indicators across Afghanistan's agricultural zones — linking SoilSense data to land degradation neutrality targets and practical management recommendations.

In preparation
📋 Policy Brief No. 03 · Coming August 2026

Afghanistan Economic Diversification: From Aid Dependency to Productive Economy

Afghanistan Development Initiative · In preparation

GDP analysis, export potential, trade corridor opportunities and policy pathways toward reduced aid dependency and increased domestic production.

In preparation
Data Sources

Where our data comes from

All ADI tools and publications use open, verified data sources. Full methodology documented in each tool's GitHub repository.

World Bank

World Development Indicators

Water access, GDP, poverty, trade and economic indicators for 200+ countries. Updated annually.

data.worldbank.org →
FAO

AQUASTAT Database

Water resources, irrigation, and water security data. Afghanistan country profiles and global comparisons.

fao.org/aquastat →
ISRIC

SoilGrids 2.0

Global soil property maps at 250m resolution — organic carbon, pH, nitrogen, texture and bulk density.

soilgrids.org →
NASA / JPL

GRACE-FO Satellite

Terrestrial water storage anomalies — groundwater depletion monitoring from satellite gravity measurements.

grace.jpl.nasa.gov →
UCSB / CHG

CHIRPS Rainfall Data

35+ years of rainfall and precipitation data for drought and climate monitoring across Afghanistan.

chc.ucsb.edu →
ESA / Copernicus

Sentinel Satellite Data

Multispectral satellite imagery for NDVI, vegetation monitoring, and land cover mapping.

copernicus.eu →
WHO / UNICEF

JMP Water & Sanitation

Joint Monitoring Programme data on drinking water and sanitation access globally and for Afghanistan.

washdata.org →
Google

Google Earth Engine

Cloud-based geospatial analysis platform for vegetation monitoring and environmental indicators.

earthengine.google.com →
Open Platform

Contribute to ADI

ADI grows through collaboration. Researchers, practitioners, and field workers worldwide are welcome to contribute data, tools, policy briefs, and research.

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Datasets

Open datasets on any ADI pillar — CSV, Excel, GeoJSON with clear methodology and sources.

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Policy Briefs

Evidence-based policy analysis with cited sources covering Afghanistan development challenges.

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Tools & Code

Open-source tools, dashboards, or scripts that help practitioners working on Afghanistan.

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Research Notes

Field observations, technical notes, methodology documentation, or working papers.

✅ We accept

  • • Original research and field data
  • • Open-source tools and code
  • • Evidence-based policy analysis
  • • Datasets with clear methodology
  • • Contributions in any language
  • • Work from any institution

❌ We do not accept

  • • Political or partisan content
  • • Unverified or uncited claims
  • • Proprietary or copyrighted data
  • • Content unrelated to Afghanistan
  • • Commercial or promotional material

Submit a contribution

All contributions reviewed within 7 days. Published with full author credit under CC BY 4.0 licence.

Thank you!

We will review your submission and get back to you within 7 days.

About ADI

Who is behind this

Maiwand Jan Alamzoi
Founder · Environmental & Sustainability Data Scientist
Afghan data scientist based in the Netherlands, with over 7 years of experience across international development, EU-funded innovation projects, and applied research in precision agriculture and sustainability.
FAO UN Roster — Soil Management Specialist (2026–2029)
Data Scientist — Agrisim & Rapagra, Wageningen
MSc Agriculture & Food Engineering — IIT Kharagpur, India
Precision Agriculture Campus, Noord-Brabant
JICA Knowledge Co-Creation Program — Japan
Agricultural Development Consultant — FAO, Kabul

ADI was built from a simple observation — there is no open, reliable, data-driven platform covering Afghanistan's development challenges across all sectors. Everything is scattered, outdated, or behind paywalls.

Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers make critical decisions without the data they need. ADI is the attempt to change that — one tool, one dataset, one policy brief at a time.

This platform is built on field experience from FAO consultancy work in Afghanistan, combined with data science expertise developed across EU-funded projects and applied research in the Netherlands.

ADI is independent, non-political, and committed to open access. It welcomes collaboration from anyone who believes Afghanistan deserves better data.

Get Involved

Collaborate with ADI

We welcome researchers, practitioners, domain experts, and organisations who want to contribute data, tools, policy briefs, or expertise. ADI is built to grow through collaboration.