Modern means of monitoring the hydrological regime in the Siret River Basin (Romania)

Abstract

The hydrometrical monitoring of the water courses represents a major step in apprehending the hydrological regime.
The old systems of monitoring imposed - in special circumstances – great efforts from operators, who sometimes reached exhaustion. For example, a flood in the lower basin of the Siret River extends on a period of even more than a week; meanwhile the gauging station observer must provide recorded data at least three to three hours.
Lately new monitoring programs have been introduced to cover both classical gauging stations, and especially automatic stations which are already installed in the field.
DESWAT Project (Destructive Water) which was conducted with the financial and technical support of USAID (United States Agency for Investment and Development) and USTDA (U.S. Trade and Development Agency) aims to elaborate appropriate recommendations in the field of flood protection, including public information, and modernization of hydrological monitoring network in the Siret River Basin, using the latest technology. Siret Water Administration has currently 82 automatic gauging stations and 35 independent automatic rainfall stations from the DESWAT project. The information collected by the automatic stations represents basic elements for the hydrological forecasting program RFS (River Forecast System).
As a result of the project "Plan for Prevention, Protection and Mitigation of floods in the Siret River Basin" (Part I) there were obtained hydrological risk maps for the Siret River and its main tributaries, so that in Part II of the same project to be obtained risk maps for the smaller tributaries. As result of the project, Siret Water Administration also benefited of the hydrologic modelling software ISIS necessary to adjust and update the maps.
The EASTAVERT Project will be implemented by the partner institutions for water management in Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, and aims to reduce the vulnerability to flooding of the communities in the border regions by carrying out upgrading works at the hydrological complex Stanca-Costesti, improving the warning system by installing monitoring systems in the Siret and Prut River Basins and increasing the responsiveness of the population through information.