A tide gauge, a new planning tool to minimize damage caused by natural disasters, particularly tsunamis which cause massive destruction of beaches without warning, has been installed at the port of Jorf Lasfar.
Initiated as part of the Coastwave project by the Marine Geosciences and Soil Sciences Laboratory of the Université Chouaib Doukkali (UCD) and the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique et Technique, in partnership with IOC-UNESCO, this project will contribute, according to the organizers, to forecasting and preparing for natural phenomena resulting from tsunamis, in the spirit of finding the appropriate means to respond to such disasters.
The installation of a tide gauge at the port of Jorf Lasfar, said Pr El Khaldi Khalid, coordinator of the project, in a statement, has a dual purpose. The first, he added, concerns the continuous measurement of sea level and the transfer of data in real time, which is very useful for research into climate change and variations in sea level, while the second is designed to detect sudden variations in sea level in relation to tsunamis.
“The whole point of setting up such a structure is to be able to predict events so as to be able to issue an alert in a timeframe compatible with the response capabilities of the relevant services”, he explained.
This project, he added, is the fruit of a partnership between UCD’s Marine Geosciences and Soil Sciences Laboratory, the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRST) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)-UNESCO.
On the same occasion, a day was organized at the Faculty of Science in El Jadida, devoted on Wednesday September 27 to training for some twenty technicians, on “the usefulness and technical aspects of the tide gauge”. The aim is to be able to map the ocean depths, identify species, ensure that knowledge of the oceans is an integral part of school curricula and protect ocean sites, many of which are home to essential biodiversity, with a view to ensuring a tsunami warning system.
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