- Students learn firsthand about the early warning system promoted by RISC_PLUS in the Miño and Limia basins
- The visit included technical demonstrations, prediction models, and a field trip to a SAIH station on the Miño River
The Miño-Sil Hydrographic Confederation (CHMS), an autonomous body under the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, received Civil Engineering students from the USC Lugo Campus and international students from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia at its Basin Control Center (CECU). The visit is part of the dissemination and knowledge transfer activities of the RISC_PLUS project, which aims to improve hydrological monitoring and response capacity to floods and droughts in the international basins of the Miño and Limia.
During the day, CECU officials provided students with a detailed explanation of how the hydrological control and water quality systems—SAIH and SAICA—work, which are part of the intelligent network used to feed the RISC_PLUS project’s early warning system.
Students were able to learn how data from control points distributed throughout the district are received, processed, and transmitted in real time: rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers that provide measurements every five minutes on hydrometeorological variables essential for anticipating extreme events.
In addition to the technical presentation, students attended practical demonstrations of the use of hydrological prediction tools and simulation models employed in daily basin management. They also received information about action plans for droughts and floods, areas in which RISC_PLUS promotes significant improvements through new stations, greater information exchange capacity, and advanced modeling systems.
The day concluded with a field visit to an Automatic Hydrological Information System station located on the Miño River as it passes through Ourense. There they were able to observe firsthand how data is collected from installed sensors, how it is transmitted via satellite to CECU, and how these mechanisms enable efficient monitoring of possible floods or pollution episodes.
The participating students and faculty valued the visit very positively, both for its academic usefulness and for the opportunity to closely observe the technological infrastructure that supports hydrological risk management and that RISC_PLUS is strengthening in the Galicia–Northern Portugal Euroregion.
This project, co-financed by the European program Interreg Spain–Portugal (POCTEP) 2021–2027, is committed to solutions based on scientific knowledge, cross-border cooperation, and technological innovation, to ensure efficient and sustainable water management in a scenario marked by climate change.
