Submitted by Katie Muchan on
NRFA staff Katie Muchan, Nikos Mastrantonas, Isabella Tindall and Stephen Turner carried out a four-day liaison visit to the Environment Agency’s West Midlands area in March. The visit consisted of office meetings in Tewkesbury and Lichfield, and gauging station visits in the surrounding area.
The office meetings provided an opportunity for the Environment Agency and NRFA staff to meet and discuss their current activities, share knowledge, and work together to improve the UK’s hydrometric data holdings. Station visits were situated across the West Midlands in a mixture of urban and rural catchments with most stations at relatively high flows (above Q10) as a result of Storm Gareth.
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.
