Over the past few months, all the equipment has been made ready for use at Royal Eijkelkamp in Giesbeek. Two trucks are equipped with drills that can employ various drilling techniques, including sonic drilling and they will be used later this year to drill monitoring wells in Sri Lanka, in which groundwater sensors will be installed.

Two of the trucks are fitted with 1,000L water tanks to ensure that there is sufficient water present during drilling. The last two trucks contain compressors and extra cargo space for drilling-related equipment. The two trailers carry recycling and mixing units that separate the coarse and dry components from the drilling fluid. Besides the vehicles, some 30 containers filled with related equipment are headed to Sri Lanka, all intended for development of the groundwater monitoring network.

"The groundwater monitoring network to be realised, consisting of 150 monitoring sites, will soon provide the decision-makers of the Sri Lanka Ministry with timely, reliable, accurate data, on the basis of which groundwater-related problems can be monitored and managed," said project manager Elsa Mulder-van Heijst.

Prior to the transport, a delegation from the Sri Lanka Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management visited Royal Eijkelkamp to view, inspect, and test all the equipment themselves. "The inspections and tests went perfectly, so we can now ship everything to Sri Lanka," added Mulder.