AWWA INF53972

AWWA INF53972 Managing City of San Francisco's Water Distribution System With GIS
Conference Proceeding by American Water Works Association, 06/01/2001

Yu, Chi^Hubley, Bruce^Wortman, Tom^Kubick, Karen^Shaukat, Nadeem

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The City of San Francisco's Water Distribution Division completed a GISdemonstration project in Fall of 1998. This pilot study evaluated the capabilityof using ArcView GIS to digitize and store information about the water pipelines,valves, hydrants, and service connections. This effort is needed to keep theinformation current and accurate and available to field and office personnel inthe Water Department. Currently, the changes, alternations, or additions aredrawn into the thirty individual Gatebooks by hand; most Gatebooks are notcompletely up-to-date. The information in the Gatebooks is needed during andafter emergencies, disasters, main breaks, and routine maintenance. The pilotproject was found to have merit, and the computerization of the 1200 miles ofpipelines and associated valves, blow-offs, hydrants and pressure zones intodigital GIS format is now entering its final phase of construction. A user-needsassessment was performed to understand the Gatebook use process and to determinewhat needs to be accomplished with the Gatebook automation. The GIS steeringcommittee has included Gatemen and personnel from engineering, managementinformation systems, operations, and project management disciplines. The mappingstandards and query logic were established early in the project. A Graphical UserInterface (GUI) has been developed using ArcView's Avenue language to incorporatedatabase developments and functions identified during the user-needs assessment.Several buttons and tools have been developed in the GUI to achieve differentfunctions. Flexibility has been built into the process to allow for the Gatemento include text, images, audio, and video files when they are in the field. Whenthe Gatebook is fully digitized, flat panel monitors, computers, and printerswill be installed in the Gatemen's trucks and the field operations will havecontinual access to the most current information. The effort will ultimately belinked with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and the CityDistribution Division's Stoner model which is used for hydraulic modeling forreal time information, bringing the San Francisco Water Department into the worldof smart pipes. Includes figures.