Solar powered weather and air quality monitoring station in SOA campus

Bhubaneswar: In a significant collaboration to counter climate change, Bronx Community College of City University of New York (CUNY) on Monday installed an automatic solar powered weather and air quality monitoring station in the campus of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) Deemed to be University here.

The station will monitor weather and air quality within a five mile radius of SOA’s Centre for Environment and Climate (CEC) located in the campus of the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), faculty of engineering and technology of SOA.  

The initiative has been funded by US Consulate at Hyderabad and the principal investigators are Prof. Neal Phillip, Chairperson of Bronx Community College’s department of Chemistry, Earth Sciences and Environmental Sciences and Prof. Paramita Sen of the same department.

The project also involves Indian Initiative for Research and Education Collaboration of CUNY CREST Institute which was officially launched on September 9, 2022.

The weather station, part of the green initiative and fully runs on solar power, was inaugurated by Prof. Manas Kumar Mallick, Director of ITER in the presence of Dr. Sarat Chandra Sahu, Director of CEC, Prof. Phillip, Prof. Sen and Advisor to the US Consul General at Hyderabad Mr. Salil Kader.

Dr. Sahu said that the weather and air quality monitoring station will put the issue of climate and air quality at the forefront of sustainability discussions in the university and local circles. The data which will be generated continuously would be used by the faculty for climate research, he said adding it would also be incorporated into the curriculum.

The Indian Meteorological Department would also be encouraged to use the weather and air quality data generated by the station for societal good, Dr. Sahu said.

“Climate change and air quality had become two most important factors affecting mankind and our effort is to work with Indian institutions of higher education to make a difference,” Prof. Phillip said.

Those present at the inauguration included Prof. Renu Sharma, Additional Dean (Student Affairs), ITER, Prof. Mira Das, Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Prof. Aditya Kishore Das of SOA’s Centre for Bio-fuel and Bio-processing Research Centre, Dr. Akshay Kumar Verma, Prof. Bidyadhar Basa and Prof. Jagannath Prasad Behera of the Civil Engineering Department were present.