“Deformation Monitoring of the Sarez Lake Dam based on BeiDou Technology”, an international cooperation research project undertaken by the National Time Service Centre (NTSC) of Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) was launched in Lintong of Shaanxi Province in on March 17, 2021. 

It marked a substantial step for NTSC on “Belt and Road” international cooperation. 

“We plan to use high-precision positioning and communication technology of Beidou to carry out the deformation monitoring of the Sarez Lake dam and provide an important scientific reference for dam safety,” said Prof. TU Rui, leading scientist of the research from NTSC. 

Located in the Pamir region in eastern Tajikistan with altitude of 3263 meters above sea level, Sarez Lake is a barrier lake formed by the mountain collapse after a strong earthquake in 1911. Another hit in this earthquake active zone will bring immeasurable losses to millions of people in the lake area, and disaster to the ecological environment of Central Asia. 

Based on the first-stage collaboration between CAS and the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan, this project formulated a dam deformation monitoring program with Beidou technology. 

Beidou high-precision positioning technology and hierarchical communication strategy will be adopted in the project to help monitor the deformation of the dam. 

The research team will build base stations to collect data from the dam area, and transmit the preliminary-processing data to the Tajik emergency department with help of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. 

Timely deformation warning on the dam deformation will be broadcasted after multi-source comprehensive analysis of all collected data. Shared information will help international disaster reduction collaboration. 

The first two set of monitoring facilities will be equipped by the end of this August, and another three will be completed before August 30 next year.