SO YOU WANT TO INTEGRATE WATER SYSTEM MODELS WITH GIS?

摘要

Integrating water distribution models with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offers a number of benefits to municipalities, the greatest of which is maintaining a single updated source of water system information. Municipal users of GIS and water system models typically exist in separate municipal departments with different focuses. They however share one common need, to utilize up to date utility data that accurately represents the water distribution system. This paper examines the benefits and challenges involved in integrating the two systems. Freese and Nichols has been involved in integrating water distribution models with GIS for several different municipalities ranging from small systems to major cities with varying degrees of integration. Several of the challenges to be discussed in this paper include: data purging, water line connectivity, data translation, special hydraulic data needs and maintenance of model data.