CAE WILL INSTALL THE FIRST REAL TIME WATER QUALITY AND HYDRO-METEOROLOGICAL MONITORING SYSTEM FOR THE CITY OF CARACAS, VENEZUELA

CAE awarded the contract for the real time water quality and hydro-meteorological monitoring system, to be installed in the most important water basins serving the city of Caracas, Venezuela. The system will be a property of HIDROCAPITAL, the Government Institution managing the water resources for the Venezuela’s capital city and the States of Varags and Miranda, serving more than 8 M people.

The Project includes - in its first phase – the three major water basins of Camatagua, Taguaza and El Guapo, plus hydro-meteorological stations to be placed at the existing sites of Pereza and Mariposa, plus the site of Cuira, where a new reservoir is going to be built. The water quality monitoring is executed through floating rafts designed by CAE and multi-parameter probes, capable to move up and down along the water column, measuring quality parameters according to a pre-programmed mode or as requested by the operator. Hydro-meteorological monitoring – on its turn - is based on CAE traditional instruments, such as the well known SPM20 station, to which sensors for rain, wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, evaporation and water level are connected. A main control Centre of advanced conception will be installed in Caracas at Hydrocapital head office. This Centre will be equipped with dedicated CAE designed software packages and will be responsible for reception and processing of all data received by the peripheral stations. Transmission of data from peripheral to centre will be by UHF radio system.

Among the advantages offered by the system, the possibility of selecting each time the most convenient depth for withdrawal of waters to be sent to the treatment plant for potabilization. This allows optimising the water treatment cycle, with significant saving of chemicals and consequent economic / environmental benefits. Past experiences with similar CAE systems, proved that economic savings pays back the investment in less than two years. The system is conceived in such a way to be easily integrated – whenever requested – in the National hydro-meteorological monitoring system, allowing Hidrocapital to exchange data and information with all other existing Centres, in Venezuela or abroad.