Where mountain terrain makes floods likely (High Mountain Asia)
What it measures. A terrain-based index showing which low-lying areas near rivers in the mountains of High Mountain Asia are most prone to flooding, based on how high a spot sits relative to nearby riverbanks.
How it's made. Calculated entirely from detailed elevation models (not a live satellite feed), comparing each point's height to the bankfull level of the nearest river — at 30 m across the region and a sharper 8 m over Nepal.
How & where you'd use it. Helps map flood risk in steep mountain landscapes to support hazard assessment and planning.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2017-07-16 → 2017-07-16
- Measured byMODELS (NOT APPLICABLE)
- Processing levelLevel 4
- Spatial extent58.1, 9.5, 121.6, 49.7
- FormatsGeoTIFF, Shapefile
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
- Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
- Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description
This data set contains Flood Geomorphic Potential (FGP) at 30 m resolution for the High Mountain Asia region and 8 m resolution over Nepal. FGP is a digital elevation model-derived index that provides high-resolution flood mapping based on bankfull elevations, defined in terms of river widths, and elevation differences between points under examination and the closest bankfull elevations in the river network.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="HMA2_FGP",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- High Mountain Asia 30m and 8m Flood Geomorphic Potential, Version 1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION