Gladstone Area Water Board (GAWB) has improved its ability to measure and monitor rainfall over the Awoonga Dam catchment area, with new technology to help be even more precise in measuring rainfall and dam inflows.
GAWB CEO Darren Barlow said the technological enhancements will assist us to better understand rainfall, and support drought and flood modelling.
“We’ve all been gleefully checking our backyard rain gauges lately, thanks to last week’s much-welcome heavy rainfall across the Gladstone region,” said Mr Barlow.
“Our network of rain monitoring gauges measures rainfall across the Awoonga Dam catchment area but every ten years, we explore whether there is new technology which can help us enhance our measuring and monitoring capabilities rainfall and of dam inflows.
“At eight sites across the Awoonga Dam catchment area, we have upgraded our existing gauges with new instruments to measure dam inflows and water levels.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve our data collection methods at GAWB, so that we can continue to effectively manage the region’s water supply,” Mr Barlow said.
Awoonga Dam is now sitting at 46% capacity, and the recent rain has not delivered a significant lift to storage levels at the dam.
For Awoonga Dam, water needs to fall on the catchment area – the Boyne Valley Basin, so while rain may fall in Gladstone, if it’s not falling over the catchment it won’t lead to more water in the dam.
“Water is a precious resource, and we need more rain to fall to fill our dam. In the meantime, the improvements to our gauges will deliver more robust, reliable and consistent data collection, which informs how we can better monitor the environmental health of the Lake Awoonga ecosystem,” Mr Barlow said.
At any time, you can find out more about the level of water in Awoonga Dam at the top of the home page of Gladstone Area Water Board’s website.
