On Wednesday, March 8, the pilot project of the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences – CzechGlobe and the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Sunyani, Ghana, which focuses on climate change monitoring and supports adaptation to climate change at the regional and national levels, will be officially launched. The project will enable the transfer and use of unique data in practice as well as education in the field of ecology.
The research will be carried out thanks to a newly built and equipped tower for monitoring the fluxes of carbon in the forest stand. The tower was jointly built by the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences – CzechGlobe, the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Sunyani with other partners – the Ghana Forestry Commission and the Forestry Research Institute – in the Bia Tano forest Reserve in the Ahafo region. The ecosystem to be studied will be tropical rainforest and semi-deciduous forest of the northwestern subtype.
“The construction of the station was adversely affected by anti-covid measures, which significantly delayed its commissioning. I am pleased that after years of preparation, overcoming bureaucratic obstacles, securing funding and building the tower, we finally have a complete station equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation for collecting data that will help us understand the global carbon cycle,” said Professor Michal V. Marek, director of the GCRI – CzechGlobe.
The final equipment of the tower with measuring systems and sensors was provided by scientists and technicians from CzechGlobe together with Ghanaian colleagues who completed their doctoral studies in Brno. They will also be the guarantors of the measurement campaigns.
