An automated system should appear where observers at hydrological posts are now considered indispensable personnel.
Roshydromet plans to lay off about two thousand employees, whose functions can be performed by an automated control system. The equipment is installed within the framework of the Federal Target Program throughout the country, and within two years the position of an observer at gauging stations should disappear from the staffing tables.
Among those who may soon lose their jobs is Vladimir Pushkarev, an employee of the Omsk hydrological station.
With his simple equipment (a thermometer in his left hand, a rail in his right) he has to manually measure the level and temperature of the water in the Irtysh. And this is in any weather and at any time of the year, even twice a day. By the way, he has already studied his robot competitor well.
The installation consists of a solar panel, inside which there are a battery and a radar installation. With the help of it, the water level is determined and automatically transferred to the server for management, – says Vladimir.
Officials see solid advantages in the technical innovation: firstly, information will be received every hour, and not twice a day, and there will finally be no problems with staff shortages.
The salary of an observer of a hydrological point is only six to seven thousand rubles, and every year there are fewer and fewer people who want to freeze in cold water for that kind of money.
Forecasters understand that progress cannot be stopped. But they decided not to give their places to the machines without a fight. They say that they will leave, but after a year, or maybe three, because so far technology cannot cope without human control.
Sensors have their own characteristics and may sometimes show incorrectly. Sometimes they need to be adjusted and adjusted to the data that we have been measuring for more than 50 years with the help of hydrological observers, ”explains Sergey Ivanov, an employee of the Hydrometeorological Service.
But at the station where Irina Barsukova works as an observer of the post, no one has yet been laid off. And nevertheless, a woman now goes to the bank of the Irtysh for the last time every time.
It’s sad, on the one hand, it seems like we can stay out of work. But if a person has some kind of mental potential, then, I think, age is not a hindrance either. It will be possible to find something else, – the woman thinks.
In the Ob-Irtysh department of Roshydromet, electronics have already ousted 135 people from their posts.
The department says that they will try to carry out the reform as painlessly as possible and that only those specialists who would have retired in the near future will be replaced with machines.
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