Client Success Story
Southern Rural Water GIS
Paul Byrnes - Southern Rural Water
Paul
Byrnes manages the GIS for Southern Rural Water (SRW), the organisation
responsible for managing rural water resources across the southern
half of Victoria, an area of approximately 95,000 sq kilometres.
SRW’s assets, operations and staff are widely dispersed.
The authority employs over 100 people and serves more than 10,000
customers and has assets valued at over $427 million.
The
SRW corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) plays a vital
role in supporting a wide range of business activities. Paul has
led the development of the GIS over the last two years and has
ensured that development and deployment has focused on meeting
the specific needs of SRW’s business units and that users
are comfortable using the technology.
In
2001, Spatial Vision won the open tender to deploy the SRW GIS
solution based on ESRI’s ArcGIS technology. Implementation
of the GIS involved capturing data from paper plans, as well as
converting existing asset data and then integrating spatial records
with existing business systems. The first major step in the SRW
project was to design the system data architecture (data model)
to make sure that the investment in conversion/ capture was going
to provide data that would meet business reporting needs. The
GIS was deployed in the two main business centres, Maffra and
Werribee, that share concurrent licenses of ArcView. Users of
the GIS are able to link to various corporate databases, including
the Asset Management System, Meter Database and Ground-water Databases.
Paul
required that the GIS was easy-to-use and offered a user-interface
focussed on the three specific lines of business: Headworks (reservoirs),
Licensing (surface water and groundwater), and Irrigation (service
districts). When a SRW user logs into the GIS, the application
opens a user-interface tailored to reflect their operational area,
as shown in Figure 1 and 2.
Paul was previously involved in setting up the GIS for Wimmera – Mallee
Water in Horsham and applied this experience to his approach
for SRW. Paul recognised the need for target users to be well
trained and supported. Spatial Vision provided formal training
in the use of their system as well as mentoring in small groups
to assist people to resolve any misunderstandings (Spatial
Vision finds that mentoring sessions are an effective way
of ensuring future data and functionality enhancements are
well targeted and aligned with business processes and improved
operational efficiencies).
Figure
1: Opening screen and user login that selects a designated
data view
Figure
2: Custom data view and tool bar for SRW
From
his previous experience, Paul knew that the effective management and
update of spatial data required additional resources and software. Paul
recognised that SRW would either need to make a committed investment
to staff time and skills development to undertake data management, or
alternatively, contract out this role. Paul opted to contract the data
management role, which involves the provision of regular data updates,
to Spatial Vision.
Over
the last year, Paul has also called on Spatial Vision to perform specialist
services including:
- The registration of aerial photography and improved alignment of spatial
data;
- Investigate the application of airborne radiometric data in
the mapping of soil types;
- Develop a 3-dimensional image of ground-water aquifers to highlight
the spatial relationships between aquifers at different depths and to
visualise them in context with other layers, like water courses, roads
and towns; and
- Develop functionality to symbolise asset value/depreciation,
graph water usage volumes over various years and visually compare water
entitlement versus usage.
The
deployment of the GIS has assisted SRW to manage their ‘knowledge’
resources. The customisation of the GIS and focussed training has spread
GIS skills across the organisation. The contracting out of the data
management has reduced SRW’s requirement to take on additional
skills and knowledge that were not core to service delivery.
The demands on the water industry regarding operational efficiency,
responsiveness to clients and asset management are increasing.
Paul says “Spatial Vision plays a vital role in
the on-going support and enhancement of the GIS that is critical
to ensure that it continues to serve as an important tool
to support management. Spatial Vision has also demonstrated
its commitment to the water industry through establishment
and ongoing support of the GIS Water User Group which is a
great way to share experiences between similar organisations”.
Copyright
© Spatial Vision, Wednesday, 1-October-2003
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