The National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INDRHI) continued this weekend the practices of drone flights as part of the workshop “Drone Operation applied to the Management of Water Resources” organized by the entity with the purpose of training collaborators of areas strategic in the use of technology for the development of the organization and the country, as part of the vision of its executive director, Olmedo Caba Romano, to keep the water entity at the forefront of technology and favor the development of the water sector.
Currently, 22 collaborators from various areas of the entity receive the training, sponsored by the organization and given by the expert in operational applications of drones in hydraulic engineering Rafael Núñez Ovalles, collaborator, pilot and trainer with international certification.
At the end of the training, the participants will have the ability to pilot drones, perform basic functional maneuvers for supervision and inspection on construction sites, and configure settings for automatic flights and photogrammetric surveys, among other details.
Núñez Ovalles said that the training is carried out by order of the executive director to specialize these collaborators in gathering information in areas to be intervened such as irrigation canals, dams or basins, since with drones the amount of sediment and defective sections in the work, shortening the work time, which translates into faster responses to the needs of the irrigators and other sectors of the country.
He announced that this week they will have a practice in the Azua II Agricultural Development Project – Pueblo Viejo, where the participants will carry out an information survey and photogrammetric processing in the rehabilitation of the YSURA channel, with automatic flights using different types of drones, which will allow the institution’s engineers use digital terrain models and contour surfaces, among other utilities that guarantee optimal work.
In that order, Juan Fulvio Ureña, Advisor in Environmental Management of the agency, who participates in the course, in addition to training as an important value since the current management finds an agency somewhat behind in terms of technology and that currently civil engineering, environment and water resources require these teams.
It is recalled that the INDRHI recently carried out a survey in the Las Barías reservoir, where the drone was the key element to determine the bathymetry of the reservoir, that is, to measure the amount of sediment, information that the entity’s Dams department uses in hydraulic modeling. that seek to increase the operating capacity of the counter-reservoir and the Valdesia dam. This activity was carried out in coordination with the Dominican Hydroelectric Generation Company (EGEHID) and the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources.
