Continuous environmental monitoring is essential in all refineries, chemical, petrochemical, and industrial plants in general where toxic, combustible, or explosive gases are handled, used or produced, with the risk of leaks in open or closed areas, in order to know at all times if the concentrations of these gases in the environment have exceeded the established safety limits.

To measure these concentrations, the GASALERT system uses sensors designed to detect each different type of gas that are strategically located and connected by groups or zones to a TAURO remote data measurement and transmission unit.

Each remote TAURO unit in the GASALERT system is equipped with the necessary hardware to store all of the information received from the GAS SENSORS, transmitting the data via Ethernet, radio or GPRS/3G/4G to a Central Station or Server, which usually consists of a computer that may or may not be connected to the plant's local area network (LAN).

Another important feature of the GASALERT system's measurement network is that its remote units can also be connected to meteorological sensors, specifically wind sensors. The meteorological information is also transmitted to the Central Server together the data containing the gas concentrations and the alerts.

If wind sensors are installed in some of the remote stations of the GASALERT system (when the system is installed in open spaces), the wind field in the proximity of the plant in question can be calculated to determine the diffusion plume of a gas leak. Knowing the concentration of the gas at a given leak source, the diffusion model can even estimate the gas concentration at other points in the area, displaying the concentrations of the gas cloud in a colour-coded graphic. This optional application is supported by the AEOLO-ESTELA program package that is installed on the computer of the central monitoring station of the GASALERT system.