The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) has donated three automated hydrological sensors to help strengthen infrastructure and data collection in the Gambia.
James Gomez, minister of fisheries and water resources for the Gambia, said, “With this donation, the Ministry of Water Resources will be able to increase the accuracy of forecasts and information and data observations from the sensors will make Gambia safer and better informed. We are grateful to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), through WASCAL, for this unprecedented gesture.”
Lamin Dibba, minister of environment, climate change and natural resources, said, “It is no longer a secret in the world that climate change is an emergency for least developed countries who are highly vulnerable. Despite this emergency, the contributions of our countries don’t match in terms of accurate data. This donation has come in timely to fill in the gap and to help change the narrative.”
Madam Faye, representative of WASCAL board members in the Gambia, added, “The donation of the automatic hydrological sensors will facilitate data collection, data quality assurance and sharing and utilization for research, education, capacity building and the provision of hydrological services for the country.”
Speaking on behalf of WASCAL, Kehinde Ogunjobi, director of research of the Competence Centre, said, “The donated automatic hydrological sensors by BMBF will generate data for our models, to forecast and predict rainfall variability, and temperature.
“This will help scientists to redesign policies and programs to help reduce the effect of climate change on the livelihood of our society.”
The automatic hydrological sensors are funded by BMBF for the benefit of WASCAL member states with the view to reducing data gaps and improving climate change mitigation in the region.