The Hydrometeorological Service (Hydromet) and Environmental Management Consultants (EMC) have begun a meteorology and water quality baseline monitoring programme for the Lower Essequibo Watershed.
As part of this programme, Hydromet has installed a Vaisala Automatic Weather Station at the Saxacalli Rainforest Centre to supply real-time weather and environmental monitoring, a release from the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.
Further, considering the impacts of the extractive industries, agriculture and fishing on the Lower Essequibo River Watershed, a Water Quality Baseline Programme for this area will begin from January 2021 with monthly data collection through a commitment by EMC of personnel, equipment and facilities.
The release said that the data garnered from the Programme will help Hydromet build a solid data set of meteorological and water quality parameters which could support analyses of the state of the environment in this watershed and help guide integrated resource management for the area.
Prior to this investment, the release said that there was no Automatic Weather Station on the Lower Essequibo. The installation of the Vaisala Automatic Weather Station will enable the recording of 10 meteorological parameters including rainfall, wind speed and wind direction, solar radiation, air temperature and relative humidity as well as atmospheric pressure. This data will be taken at fifteen-minute intervals and uploaded via satellite link, the release said.
These initiatives have been executed as part of cooperation through an MoU between Hydromet and EMC. The MoU builds on existing efforts of cooperation on data and information recording which have focused on the Saxacalli area and are intended to encompass the lower Essequibo River watershed.
One of the key objectives of the MoU is to support freshwater resource governance and management and which will include joint efforts at hydrological and meteorological data collection among other areas.
