TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) — The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Soils and Water Management (DA-BSWM) is set to provide Bohol with an automated weather station (AWS) to be placed in Malinao Dam.
According to DA research specialist Cecile Opada, who is also the Bohol Cloud Seeding Technical Working Group (TWG) spokesperson, AWS will help researchers and the state weather bureau gather reliable on-the-ground data needed to validate the effects of climate change and the interventions, during extreme weathers.
The AWS is an integrated system of components that is used to measure, record, and often transmit weather parameters such as temperature, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, and precipitation for a variety of operational and research data for specific purposes.
AWS have weather sensors that measure wind speed and direction through an anemometer, a barometer for measuring atmospheric pressure, instruments that measure precipitation, humidity, soil moisture, lightning sensor, ceilometer for measuring cloud height.
This information is integrated in data loggers, which are networked and linked to data centers for consolidation and interpretation.
Bohol has earlier acquired some P5 million cloud seeding fund from the DA Support for Rice Production and was intended to be used for cloud seeding so that farmers can prepare their rice lands from this wet cropping season.
The provincial government, however, was not able to procure the same, as it found no supplier willing to conduct cloud seeding with only P2.5 million in funds.
“The cloud seeding operation that we have now is much different than the previous cloud seeding operations,” said Opada.
Already the sixth could seeding operation that Bohol contracted since 2016, this year’s operations use satellite imagery instead of cloud spotters stationed in different areas in the province.
With satellite imaging as guide, the TWG charts the airplane’s flight plan in such a way that it prioritizes to seed the thicker clouds to induce them to fall within an hour or less to a specific area or watershed.
“The flight plan is logged and can easily be verified, but as to the question of how much rainfall fell in a specific area, that can be a data available as soon as an AWS is placed in the area to monitor these data,” Opada explained.
On this, she asks the Provincial Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Officer to lobby for the provincial government to set up AWS, which can also guide farmers on their timetables in preparing their fields and communities in mitigating the effects of extreme weather brought by climate change. (RAHC/PIA Bohol)
