Essential maintenance on Tonga's tide and tsunami station and global navigation satellite system is being conducted by a team from the Australian Government funded Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific.

They will decommission the old tide gauge at Queen Salote Wharf and replace it with a new tide and tsunami station at Vuna Wharf.

Jeff Aquilina and Brendon Collopy, from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), and Poate Degei, from the Secretariate Pacific Community (SPC), are working with Tonga Meteorological Services and Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

The team’s work on the tide and tsunami station will ensure that this technology can continue to provide updated tidal information every minute to Tonga Meteorological Services, Government of Tonga, BOM and the SPC.

This tidal information is essential to develop the tide charts, track climate changes, and understand what happens during severe weather events and disasters, like the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai tsunami. 

The data will inform the Tongan Government's coastal infrastructure planning, especially during disaster recover,y and will enable accurate long-term sea level records for the Pacific region.

The tide and tsunami station in Nuku'alofa is one of 14 installed by the Australian Government across the Pacific. 

The tide station also works in conjunction with the Global Navigation Satellite Systems, located at Vuna Wharf and ‘Apifo'ou College, which tracks seismic movement of the earth. This helps to track and understand the natural events which impact Tonga.

In this second phase, DFT has provided AUD $28.6m worth of funding. 

COSPPac is a partnership between the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia, the Secretariate of the Pacific Community, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, who work together with local ministries and counterparts in each country. 

In Tonga, COSPPac works closely with the Tonga Meteorological Services (Tonga MET), MEIDECC and Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

Australian High Commissioner, HE Rachael Moore and First Secretary Development, Shelly Thomson met with the team on 18 August, at Vuna Wharf in Nuku'alofa.