By Arthur Lutz, FutureWater

The group of participants including training staff from the Koenders Instruments and HI-AWARE team members from PARC, PMD, ICIMOD and TERI.
HI-AWARE team members successfully attended a training course recently in the use of high-altitude monitoring equipment at Koenders Instruments in the Netherlands. Participants from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and FutureWater met between November 3 and 6, 2015 at Koenders Instruments’ premises to be trained in the installation and operation of various hydro-meteorological equipment, which will be installed at HI-AWARE’s high-altitude sites in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

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 Ganga, Upper Gandaki and Upper Teesta river basins. During the four-day 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.

After the completion of the training, 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 a better understanding of meteorological and hydrological processes and how they are affected by climate change in different parts of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan mountain region.

During the first part of the training, Koenders staff explained the workings of each individual sensor, how it should be assembled and how to operate the software to read data from the sensor.

Participants working together to assemble a frame with windscreen that would later be put around a pluviometer.

Participants assembled the grounding frame and frame for the pluviometer separately and here they are mounting the frame for the pluviometer on top of the grounding frame.

A participant is assembling and leveling the base of the pluviometer. Leveling is easy on the leveled floor at Koenders’ warehouse but will be challenging in the rough unlevelled terrain of the HI-AWARE high-altitude sites.

The amount of equipment is impressive. Occupying a large part of the Koenders Instrument’s warehouse, it is readied for shipping to Pakistan, India and Nepal.

Locations of the HI-AWARE high-altitude monitoring sites.

A meteorological station, which was installed during an earlier visit to the Langtang region of Nepal, is now in operation.