In a cooperative effort between the Sugar Company from El Salvador (Grupo CASSA) and ICC, six new meteorological stations were installed in El Salvador and were added to the Meteorological Station Network of ICC (REDMET).
The first three stations were installed at the end of 2019: Central Izalco (located in Izalco, Sonsonate), COPAL (Jiquilisco, Usulután) and Ingenio Chaparrastique (San Miguel, San Miguel). In June 2020, three new stations were installed: El Carmen (San Francisco Menéndez, Ahuachapán), San Clemente (Armenia, Sonsonate) and Agua Santa (Zacatecoluca, La Paz).
The stations are equipped with different sensors, they are also automatic, which means that they remotely monitor and transmit information every fifteen minutes of the following meteorological variables: temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, precipitation, leaf wetting, wind speed and direction.
Meteorological stations are important tools that provide real-time information for decision-making in relation to agricultural and livestock productivity, water management, biodiversity conservation, human health, and climate variability effects on human populations and communities, including information associated with integrated disaster risk management.
ICC manages a network of 36 meteorological stations in the south coast of Guatemala and El Salvador.
Meteorological stations contribute to the systematic observation of the climate, including the increase in temperature, extreme climatic events (for example, intense rainfall, droughts and heat waves) and changes in the annual patterns of temperature and precipitation, in the context of a changing climate and its associated variability.
Based on the information from the meteorological stations, very important studies are developed, such as: the start, end, duration and intensity of a heat wave; start and end of the rainy season; estimation of soil water balance and meteorological summaries.
The installation of the meteorological stations in El Salvador is the result of the support and contribution of Grupo CASSA, in favour of the socio-environmental sustainability of El Salvador and the promotion of ICC´s work in the region.
