The Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority has improved its ability to monitor river and weather conditions thanks to a $10,000 RBC Foundation grant.
The funding, provided through the Tech for Nature stream, allowed the SVCA to upgrade its hydrometric network over the winter, improving real-time data collection used for flood and drought forecasting.
"Numerous stations in our network were still using equipment that had well exceeded it's lifespan," said Jody Duncan, Flood Forecasting and Warning Coordinator. "The upgrades included the replacement of dataloggers, water level sensors, the power supply for the station and the system that the station used to transmit the data back to us at the office."
The stream gauge stations in Aberdeen and Ripley were brought up to standard, meaning all 10 locations are now state-of-the-art, which Duncan said has greatly improved the reliability of the network.
"These upgrades have been ongoing for several years now, we actually started in 2016," he said. "This donation that was received allowed us to make the upgrades to the remainder of the stations in our watershed that required it, so we now have a fully upgraded and modernized hydrometric network that we're quite proud of."
He says it's also reduced costs because the upgrades allowed a switch over to a free satellite network for data transmission, as opposed to using phone lines.