HI-AWARE training for the use of High Altitude Monitoring equipment

FutureWater co-organized a training course for HI-AWARE team members in the use high-altitude monitoring equipment at Koenders Instruments in the Netherlands. Participants from ICIMOD, PARC, PMD, TERI and FutureWater met during 3^rd November until 6^th November at Koenders Instruments in the Netherlands to be trained in the installation and operation of various hydrometeorological equipment, which will be installed at HI-AWARE’s high-altitude sites.

The group of participants including Koenders training staff and HI-AWARE team members from PARC, PMD, ICIMOD, TERI and FutureWater . During the first part of the training, Koenders staff explained the working of each individual sensor, how it should be assembled and how to operate the software to read data from the sensors.

The HI-AWARE consortium awarded Koenders Instruments the assignment to design and produce a variety of hydrometeorological monitoring systems to be installed at the HI-AWARE high-altitude sites in the upper Indus, upper Ganges and upper Brahmaputra basins. During the four days course participants were trained in setting up and installing the equipment and in working with the different sensors and software, which will be used to monitor air temperature, precipitation, humidity, radiation, snow height, wind speed and direction and river discharge.

Participants working together to assemble a frame with windscreen which is subsequently mounted on a grounding frame. Later on the pluviometer would be installed in the upper frame.

After completion of the training course, all materials were prepared and packed for transport and are now being shipped from the Netherlands to Pakistan, India and Nepal, where they will be set up at the HI-AWARE high-altitude sites. The goal of this monitoring campaign is to gain better understanding of meteorological and hydrological processes and how they are affected by climate change in different parts of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan mountain ranges.