WASA has more interest in rainfall and water than Met Service

WASA has more interest in water and rainfall than the Meteorological Services, the authority's CEO Alan Poon King said yesterday while on a tour with the media of the Hollis Reservoir in Valencia.

Pointing to a hydro-meteorological station, Poon King said there was one at Piarco, at Crown Point and at all reservoirs including Arena, Navet and Hillsborough.

"This supports the Met Services with the work they do, but also provides the basic intel we at WASA need. Our system is more expansive than the Met Service's."

He said the station gives wind speed, evaporation levels which directly impacts water reserves, how much rainfall to expect, what impact the wind is going to have, and the volume of rainfall against the time it fell.

"That type of data is also useful in that the majority of WASA's water facilities are in north-east Trinidad and that is not by accident because most of our rainfall takes place here. We get the most rainfall, highest in density. This also gives long term data to do planning for climate change."

Poon King said climate change is long term so the authority needs to be doing this data collection on a long term basis. "I am not a climatologist by any means, but we have seen changes in the weather pattern which is a shorter term. This is important to us because we will have to change our approach if what we have here is not enough, and do what we can to improve on it."

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"WASA has more interest in rainfall and water than Met Service"

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