The Research Council (TRC) in cooperation with Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers, conducted the first experiment in the sultanate’s waters for the Wave Glider - a hydroprobe designed for detecting and collecting samples of ‘submarine groundwater discharge’ (SGD).
The TRC is represented by the Institute of Advanced Technology Integration (IATI) in this project. The flow of terrestrial groundwater into the sea, usually called submarine groundwater discharge, is a global phenomenon that has been observed and demonstrated in near-shore environments and shelves of all continents.
The Wave Glider’s first experiment in Oman was conducted starting from Quriyat port. It included a water landing operation using a ship with a hydraulic crane from Blue Waters.
Speaking about the objectives of the project, Dr Omar Said al Abri, researcher of the SGD project, said, “The project aims to monitor and track groundwater discharge and flow through the development of innovative methods for tracing the locations and quantities of the water that is discharged to the sea. The research project is concerned with the development of a multi-use hydroprobe called Wave Glider, which can be operated autonomously in seawater and oceans using wave energy and solar energy for monitoring and collecting water samples.”
The Wave Glider is being developed under the project of ‘Submarine Groundwater Discharge (SGD) – Adaption of an Autonomous Aquatic Vehicle for Robotic Measurements, Sampling and Monitoring’, which is one of the three projects that are carried out by IATI, in cooperation with Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers.
Dr Abri said, “One of the main objectives of this project is to find non-traditional sources of water in the sultanate and study how they can be utilised to meet the growing water needs in the sultanate.”
The wireless communication systems and sensors installed on the glider have also been tested in this experiment. The conducted experiments proved the high efficiency of the device and its ability in coping with the hot climate conditions of the sultanate during this period of the year.
The Wave Glider is a multi-use device with a range of uses that include environmental studies, data collection on marine environmental data, meteorology, oceanography, and hydrographic surveys.
It can be also used to study the marine phenomena, such as red tide.
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