AXYS GHG business development representative, Jeremy Hancyk, attended the UNESCO/IHA GHG Status of Freshwater Reservoirs Research Project: Field Measurements and Data Analysis Workshop in Montreal, Canada, on 14-15 September, 2009.

The workshop involved a total of 38 delegates from ten countries. The presentations and group discussions related to the structure of a generic database, a measurement questionnaire, and the ongoing drafting of the project’s Field Manual and Calculation Manual. As a result of the discussions, a general outline for the structure of the Second Edition of the Measurement Specification Guidance was defined. The Summary of the workshop is now available on the IHA and UNESCO websites.

The Climate Registry, a non-profit organization dedicated to public reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data through one unified North American registry, also convened a workshop in Montreal, Canada, on 17 September 2009. AXYS was also invited to participate in this workshop, which aimed to provide an overview of the current state of the science, with respect to measuring emissions from hydro reservoirs, and to demonstrate the complexity and range of issues associated with them. The workshop followed The Climate
Registry’s completion of a greenhouse gas accounting protocol for the electric power sector, in June 2009, which had proposed the need for reporting emissions associated with hydro reservoirs. At the Workshop, Dr. Joel Goldenfum provided a summary of the UNESCO/IHA workshop and also presented an overview of the UNESCO/IHA GHG Research Project. The presentation resulted in considerable interest in the UNESCO/IHA GHG Research Project’s products and results. The State of California Department of Water Resources also presented a paper titled: An Overview of U.S. Reservoir GHG Emissions Studies and Preliminary Automated Sampling Results for Lake Oroville using time-series measurements reported during prototype testing of the GHG Sentinel™.

To support the UNESCO/IHA GHG Research Project financially, with in-kind support, or by providing contributions of measurement data from reservoirs, contact Dr. Joel Goldenfum, at jag@hydropower.org. For further information on the GHG Project, see http://www.hydropower.org/climate_initiatives.html.

AXYS Technologies Inc. designs, manufactures, distributes and maintains remote environmental data acquisition, processing and telemetry systems.  For further information contact AXYS at: info@axys.com or visit www.axystechnologies.com.

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