Report on a study trip to the Estonian Environment Agency, made by the student of theHydrometeorological Faculty (study group G-407) Printsevskaya Y.V.
In July 2013 I had practical training in the hydrological department at the Estonian Environment Agency.The Estonian Environment Agency collects, processes and summarizes data about nature, environment and factors, having an impact on them. Estonian Hydrometeorological Service, formerly known as EMHI, in June 1, 2013 joined Estonian Environment Agency.
I was looking for a suitable place outside our country to practice hydrological English, and I received such an opportunity in Tallinn. A part of practicing English at my probation place, I had a chance to prace English outside of the Agency. There were a lot of foreigners from all over the world, who were staying in my hostel and it was very interesting to communicate with them.
My supervisor in the Agency was Mrs. Anna Pyrh, who coordinated my activity work during the internship. My other colleagues were Mark and Lizzie, with them I was travelling across the country, checking equipment for gauging, measuring flow and their levels.
It was interesting to know that a huge part of the equipment is left from the Soviet period. Analogs either do not exist, or have a lot of deficiencies, or very expensive. Hydrology, as it turned out, is badly financed everywhere. I've witnessed, as my colleagues have met with representatives from the Ministry of Environment, showing them our work and emphasizing a necessity to allocate more spending on hydrometeorological networks.
But still Estonia has something to show off. They win European grants, buy new equipment, establish automatic observation stations on the network, use programs that we don't have in Russia. In Estonia I got a chance to work with such programs as KISTERS and acoustic flowmeter SonTek. Everything was unusually convenient and simple.
Hydrometric measurements were carried out on rivers in the northern part of the country and on the island Saaremaa. In one of these trips I had a chance to see the Europe's second highest waterfall(8 meters).
I visited also Estonian botanical garden, where the gauging is located as well.
The most memorable place was Saaremaa.We had to travel more than 5 hours to reach the place and the whole work was done in less than an hour. The rest of the day I spent visiting the Maazilinn castle and the Callie crater. Never seen nothng like these before.
I could not imagine before that the work and leisure time can be combined so well and I am very grateful to the staff of the International Relations Office for helping me in organizing the trip.
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