Consultant/ Senior Lecturer in Hydrology /Flood Manager
Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology
Total years of experience :30 years, 7 Months
Water Resources Consultant August 2013 - Present
CARIBBEAN INSTITUTE FOR METEOROLOGY AND HYDROLOGY
Leader of challenging projects and field expeditions throughout the Caribbean and South America. Experienced mentor and trainer of professionals from diverse nations.
Recent achievements include:
• Presented with an archaic network of predominantly manual stations dispersed over the Caribbean, I was tasked with updating the network based on my experience and official guidelines to ensure that all stations were installed and subsequently managed with standard protocols. Consequently, I designed, installed and exploited updated monitoring networks communicating through satellite and GPRS throughout the region and established excellent working relationships with local stakeholders to facilitate their continued operation. The current network of over 100 stations operates in near real-time and provides critical management data to government agencies in sixteen countries.
• Presented with an extensive portfolio of new projects distributed over a wide geographical area, worked as project engineer ensuring the homogeneous execution of said projects within stated budgets and timelines, guaranteeing that financial backers and end-users received value for money and meaningful data.
• Defied with expensive telephone charges and exorbitant flight prices across the Caribbean region, I established professional squads via Whatsapp groups in each of the territories. This strategy guaranteed that crucial players were notified of the development of potentially hazardous situations, and essential maintenance issues could often be resolved remotely. Furthermore, it strengthened the professional bonds with stakeholders and created a shared knowledge pool that benefited all members.
• Faced with the COVID pandemic and the inability to lecture face-to-face classes, I developed blended and online didactic materials on state-of-the-art platforms to train environmental professionals and technicians at all levels. To date, I have trained over 300 individuals over the last eight years.
• Confronted with the aftermath of a hurricane, I was recruited to the Rapid Needs Assessment Team (RNAT) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). My role was to identify and document immediate needs and recommend actions to facilitate decision making and mount an effective response to prioritise rehabilitation and recovery efforts. Although the conditions were extreme, the experience taught me how to manage resources under critical scenarios.
• Challenged with implementing the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), I worked as a consultant at OTT Hydromet to provide technical advice and telemetered solutions to clients to assess and install hydrological and hydraulic solutions to establish monitored control structures in irrigation channels, hydroelectric plants and canals. This was effectively performed for numerous stakeholders in the Tagus river basin resulting in official licenses issued in compliance with the WFD.
Civil Service Engineer - Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Environment
CONFEDERACIÓN HIDROGRÁFICA DEL SEGURA
• Tasked to improve the precision of the traditional river gauging network in the Segura river basin Spain, I directed civil works and managed contractors to increase the accuracy and quantity of real-time stations in the hydrometric network. The result of this was the production of top-quality data facilitating the scrutiny of licenses and water resource exploitation compliance for surface and groundwater abstraction.
• Confronted by drought conditions regularly, directed civil works to advance real-time measurements in irrigation channels, boreholes, and canals to equate the distribution of water resources via a real-time SCADA system facilitating the teleoperation of hydraulic structures.
• Presented with an ever-increasing spectrum of projects, I undertook specific preparation in the control of industrial tipping to rivers and water bodies and fisheries inspection, thereby improving my awareness of water quality issues and helping me to make a more objective response to resource management problems.
Senior Hydrologist, Confederation Hidrográfica del Segura
IBERIAN SOCIETY OF ELECTRIC CONSTRUCTIONS, DRAGADOS, INDRA S.A.,
• Managed the monitoring and verification of hydrometeorological data in near real-time for the Automatic System of Hydrological Information in southeast Spain, including daily water resource allocation to agriculture, maintenance team direction, and river gauging planning. Maintained discharge curves, reported torrential episodes, provided river modelling for optimal flood mitigation with HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS, and worked with the distributed hydrological and sediment cycle model TETIS. Expedited information to water quality technicians and applied new technologies to flood and drought mitigation.
• Confronted with the necessity of increasing water monitoring sites to comply with the WFD, I opted for a wireless system with ELPRO radio links. This resulted in fewer resources being spent on excavating and maintaining trenches and provided a robust solution to adding remote sensors to a pre-existing network on a fixed budget.
Led the program, including exam coordination, supervising grades, developing courses, supervising projects, and overseeing program marketing and recruitment.
Developed lesson plans, provided instruction to students regarding literature and methodology, and monitored student progress.
UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA, Spain.
Mediterranean Desertification and Land-Use project MEDALUS II of the European Commission, collected on physical and socio-economic aspects of Guadalentin basin, Murcia, SE Spain. Geo-referencing of hydrometeorological networks, rainfall field modeling, and assessing the effects of drought boreholes on regional aquifers.
UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD MANCHESTER, United Kingdom Engineering research fellow at Water Resources Radar Research Group, developing operational procedures to aid effective management of water supply systems under drought conditions. Funded by the Science and Engineering Research Council and United Utilities. Doctoral Thesis: Civil Engineering, Hydrometeorological Aspects of Drought Management (1994). Published 1994 by University of Salford, Manchester, UK. Series DX181364 Open Library OL18953012M, September 1990–July 1994.