Launching ceremony of project ‘Water Resources Management in the Mekong River Basin’

Water Engineering and Management (WEM) program of AIT and Hydro-Informatics Institute (HII), Thailand organized a project kickoff meeting of ‘Water Resources Management in the Mekong River Basin’ at the Hydro-Informatics Institute (HII) Office in Bangkok on 30 September 2020. The project is supported by the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and USAID and jointly implemented by Water Engineering and Management and HII, Thailand. The aim of this kickoff meeting was to disseminate the project objectives and explore the opportunities for collaboration with various national and international organizations working on water resources management issues in the Mekong River Basin.

Dr. Sutat Weesakul, Director of Hydro-Informatics Institute (HII) under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Prof. Dieter Trau, Dean, School of Engineering and Technology, AIT and Ms. Roopa Karia, Deputy Director of Regional Environment Office, USAID -Asia welcomed all the participants in the kick-off meeting. Prof. Sangam Shrestha, the principal investigator of the project, introduced the project and objectives of the kick-off meeting whereas Dr. Vorawit Meesuk and Dr. Surajate Boonya-aroonnet has presented about the Automated Telemetry Station and HII Operational Real-time Flood Forecast System.

The kickoff meeting was witnessed by the senior officials of Royal Irrigation Department (RID), Department of Water Resources (DWR), Office of the National Water Resources (ONWR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Mekong River Commission (MRC), Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), USAID and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). WEM faculty members and research staffs also participated in the meeting.

Under this project, 10 Automated Telemetry Stations has been installed in 10 major tributaries of the Mekong River in the North and Northeast of Thailand. The Automated Telemetry Station is developed by Hydro-Informatics Institute (HII), and will measure different hydrological and meteorological parameters (such as temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, and river water level).