The measuring network works with data transmission via satellite that guarantees that recording errors will be identified faster than usual. Thanks to hourly transmission, a breakdown of a gauging station can be quickly identified.

Illustr. 1: The Way of Data from the Gauging Station to IWFA and back to the
Country of Origin via Internet
Grafik: Jochen Dippon

A validity check is made for all incoming data. If they do not seem plausible the staff on site will be asked to examine the respective gauging stations. To avoid that data is not transmitted because there are too few satellites available for the GPS, data are transmitted with a redundancy of one hour. Thus, a reliability of data transmission of more than 99.5 % is achieved.

Traditional measuring stations record the data analogously on paper strips or digitally.

These data are evaluated only once a month (or in maintenance or control cycle). Therefore, faulty devices and sensors lead to data loss of up to one month.

The operation of the measuring network will continue even in times of war or periods of crisis, since data are transferred via satellite. Data from gauging stations that are out of order can be reconstructed to a large extent by statistical methods.