Warning system on the island of Luis Vargas Torres in Ecuador

CAE has won the tender for the supply and installation of the rapid flood warning system on the island of Luis Vargas Torres (Esmeraldas), in Ecuador.

The project will allow the competent staff of the “Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado de Esmeraldas”, Ecuador, to monitor the main hydro-meteorological parameters and, if necessary, to alert the population.

The island is located at the mouth of the Esmeralda river, an area where particularly exceptional tidal peaks are very common, which preclude the regular outflow of the waters of the Esmeralda river; moreover, the winds blowing in the area also hinder the outflow of the river, causing flooding and alluvions.

The proposed system consists of 3 main components:

- monitoring stations: equipped with the new CAEtech Compact datalogger, they are aimed at monitoring the hydro-climatological parameters by means of one or more level sensors, such as WLR, and/or rainfall sensors, and regularly transmitting them to the Control Centre;

- Control Centre: it receives messages from the monitoring stations, continuously monitoring their status and any approaching or exceeding of the thresholds that cause the activation of the alert status.  In these emergency situations, the Centre is also responsible for initiating the required management protocols. As a further guarantee of the correct operation of the system, a backup centre will also be configured, located in a different place than the Control Centre;

- alarm stations: they are responsible for the remote switching on and off of the alarms, both automatically, by means of the appropriate alarm management software, and manually. The alarms can be SMS, acoustic or luminous.

At the end of the installation procedures, CAE will give a practical and theoretical course aimed at the staff of the Municipality of Esmeralda, so that at the end of the maintenance period they can be independent in the management of the system, with the following main objectives:

• knowledge of the integral functioning of the system;
• system maintenance activities;
• station configuration.

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