A new measuring station has been installed at 2820 metres above sea level high above the Trevelez valley. The Parque National de Sierra Nevada will, for the first time, have scientific data on the water reserves stored in the annual snowfalls.
The installation occurred in November and the experiments will last the whole year. Given the height of the area and its inaccessibility, the device had to be moved in a helicopter to deposit it in a very high location where it was assembled. A complicated operation that took days to be tested.
The system will quantify scientifically the amount of water each year ‘stored’ in the snow falling on the mountains. The data is important as some of the rivers feeding from the high Sierras to the Contraviesa run dry each year.
This measure will allow science to forecast and plan for the specific use of water, so as to know what limits should be set, for example, irrigation to avoid gaps in human consumption. The results will run alongside manual measurements with other stations such as stakes or photographs of the area per day (one day and one night).
The head of the Park Conservation, Ignacio Henares, explained that this experiment with technology already exists elsewhere in Europe, including the Alps and will move later to other parts of Sierra Nevada. This will measure the capacity and the level of the great “reservoir” of the province, the Sierra Nevada snow. In the future measurements will also be installed in the rivers of Dilar and Monachil.
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