Submitted by Steve Turner on
NRFA staff Katie Muchan, Simon Stanley, Cath Sefton and Steve Turner carried out a four-day liaison visit to the Environment Agency’s Wessex area last week.
The first two days of the visit consisted of an office meeting in Blandford Forum following by gauging station visits in the Frome and Piddle catchments. Stations in this area were mainly in groundwater-fed catchments, with flows around Q95 at the time of the visit. The team them moved northwards and carried out a second office meeting in Bridgewater followed by further gauging station visits around Bath and North Somerset. Catchments here were more responsive, although flows were still around Q95 as a result of the dry start to July.
The office meetings provided an opportunity for the Environment Agency Hydrometry & Telemetry and Hydrology teams and NRFA staff to meet and discuss their current activities, share knowledge, and work together to improve the UK’s hydrometric data holdings.
Such visits allow the NRFA’s Regional Representatives to update their knowledge of current equipment, processes and problems at each site, giving them a better understanding of how the river flows are measured. This information underpins the quality control of data submitted to the archive and allows metadata updates to inform the user community of new and emerging issues which should be considered when analysing NRFA data. The NRFA aims to conduct between 2-4 measuring authority liaison visits a year across the UK’s 24 regional hydrometric data providers.
Thank you to the Environment Agency area teams who hosted our visit which proved very useful and will help inform and advance a large number of updates to the archive.
Left: 44014 - Piddle at Briantspuddle
Right: 53017 - Boyd at Bitton
