The prestigious ‘National Tide Gauge Network’ (NTGN) contract from the Environment Agency (EA), who own and operate 42 ‘Class A’ tide gauges on behalf of the UK Coastal Flood Forecasting (UKCFF), has been awarded to OceanWise Ltd who alongside RS Divers, will deliver this multi-year contract.
As our Managing Director, Dr Mike Osborne explains, “We are delighted to have been given the responsibility of maintaining the NTGN on behalf of the nation. We already support and maintain numerous tide gauges, as well as weather stations, around the UK for our port customers, so this contract is a natural extension of our work. We are particularly looking forward to working with the EA and NOC to upgrade the network, using our expertise and experience in sensor, and data acquisition and management technologies, whilst at the same maintaining and enhancing the legacy ‘bubbler’ based systems to improve the reliability and quality of the data overall“.
The purpose of the (NTGN) is to observe sea level throughout the UK in near real-time, as input to monitoring and forecasting coastal surge, and to provide a long-term and strategic record for climatological and coastal engineering studies. The network currently consists of 21 sites in England, 10 in Scotland, 7 in Wales, 2 in Northern Ireland, 1 in Jersey and 1 in the Isle of Man.
The data provided by the network of gauges is also used by academics and researchers for a variety of other scientific purposes. Several of the gauges are part of the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) and are of international and historical significance, with some datasets dating back to the 18th century.
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Image: An OceanWise site engineer servicing a tide gauge at a UK Port