Tag Archives: Conferences

Apr 12, 2010

AWRA GIS and Water Resources Conference

By Mary L. Johnson

The American Water Resources Association (AWRA) held its Spring Specialty Conference on GIS and Water Resources from March 29-31, 2010 in Orlando, Florida.  I had the privilege of attending this event to present a poster on using the Sajara software framework to manage hardcopy infrastructure plans.  Azavea also prepared a paper for the conference proceedings to help utility organizations digitize their hardcopy documents and otherwise prepare them for integration in the Sajara software framework. 

The AWRA Conference covered a diverse range of subjects involving the use of GIS in the water resources industry.  There were presentations on hydrologic modeling, watershed delineation, data sharing, software interface development and land use applications, just to name a few.  The poster session added topics such as coastal management, agriculture, community water systems, education and irrigation, as well as document management.  Many of the organizations looking at Sajara to manage their infrastructure plans were also interested in using GIS for stormwater management applications, similar to what the Philadelphia Water Department is doing with phillystormwater.org.    

The opening plenary session featured Jack Dangermond with additional details on his vision for GIS in the cloud” and web services to enable data sharing.  He particularly referenced CUAHSI HIS (Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science Inc.), an organization representing over 100 United States universities.  CUAHSI has received National Science Foundation support to develop a web API and the HydroDesktop software application.  The desktop application has been released as open source and available at no cost to users to help them download and manage available water data.  But the web API and the database behind it are most interesting parts of the project.  CUAHSI harvests sensor feeds of water data from 1000’s of sites across the United States.  This data is archived and made available through a SOAP interface   Dangermond collaborated with David Maidment on a paper for the AWRA proceedings that outlined the integration of water resources data using GIS and the web more generally and the CUAHSI project specifically.  Maidment is the Director of the Center for Research in Water Resources at the University of Texas in Austin and heavily involved in the CUAHSI project.  Both of them were also part of a panel discussion on the future of water resources information. 

In addition to discussing Sajara with various organizations, one of the highlights of the conference for me was a presentation by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding GIS past, present and future for water resources applications.  Part of their vision for the future includes augmented reality applications, enabled by smart phones, special glasses or potentially car windshields, which would augment the reality experience of approaching a well or other infrastructure asset, for example, with critical descriptive information, or even diagrams and engineering plans overlaid on the reality view.  The potential for these projects is very exciting to me, particularly since the Philadelphia Department of Records recently received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities under its Digital Humanities Startup Grant program to develop an augmented reality application for PhillyHistory.org that would enable smart phone users to view historic photographs of the city as an overlay on their camera displays by simply pointing their smart phone cameras at selected buildings. 

AWRA will be holding this year’s annual conference right here in Philadelphia beginning on November 1, 2010.  They will be addressing regional topics of interest to Mid-Atlantic water resources organizations.  Perhaps Azavea will see you there.

The Poster Session at the AWRA Conference demonstrated Sajara’s ability to organize, search and retrieve infrastructure documents in a single web interface. Azavea’s poster was one of more than forty posters showcasing various aspects of GIS for the water resources industry.

The Poster Session at the AWRA Conference demonstrated Sajara’s ability to organize, search and retrieve infrastructure documents in a single web interface. Azavea’s poster was one of more than forty posters showcasing various aspects of GIS for the water resources industry.

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Oct 14, 2009

Using Sajara for Water, Sewer and Stormwater Infrastructure Management

By Mary L. Johnson

The Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association held its 67th annual conference and trade show from September 13th to 16th, 2009.  Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities provide potable water, sewage treatment and waste management services to municipalities across the State.  I attended the conference on September 15th to learn more about current trends for GIS in the water, sewer and stormwater management industries, and to evaluate the conference as a possible future venue for Sajara.

You might already be familiar with the use of the Sajara software framework in the popular PhillyHistory.org and MuralFarm.org web applications.  Sajara provides an excellent means of managing and geographically displaying historic documents that had previously been languishing in file drawers, or celebrating the City’s unique collection of architectural murals and local artists.  Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities and other infrastructure management organizations often have historic documents as well, and they have a very specific set of management needs that the Sajara software framework can help to address. 

Much of the water and sewer infrastructure in the United States was built between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.  For water and sewer management purposes, infrastructure includes things like pipes, manholes, fire hydrants, water mains, wells, pump stations, water storage tanks, and sewage treatment plants.  For stormwater management purposes, infrastructure includes things like inlets, outfalls, drainage basins and culverts.  The original plans and blueprints of these facilities provide invaluable reference when repair or replacement is needed.  Unfortunately, finding these archival documents can be difficult, since they have often been haphazardly stored over long periods of time and may not even be accurately indexed.  It can be very frustrating to manually search through hundreds of original hardcopy infrastructure drawings in order to find the one critical piece of data that is really needed, particularly in an emergency situation when time is of the essence.  The Sajara software framework can geographically reference these important documents and make them instantly searchable by address, date, type of infrastructure and other criteria.  The plans can be made available specifically to authorized personnel over the Internet and through various mobile platforms to provide field access when and where it is needed. 

Next time you turn on the tap, drain the bathtub or watch the rivers of stormwater pooling in a drainage basin after a heavy rainstorm, think of the infrastructure people behind the scenes that make it all possible.  We hope that by applying the Sajara software framework to their historic infrastructure data, their work will become a little less challenging. 

 

Using the Sajara software framework for an infrastructure application might look something like this. Water, sewer and stormwater management documents will be easily accessible in relation to their geographic locations or other search criteria important to infrastructure management personnel nationwide. The Sajara software framework will provide a much more efficient means of searching for historic data than rummaging through stacks of hardcopy drawings, particularly in the event of a water main break or other emergency situation.

Using the Sajara software framework for an infrastructure application might look something like this. Water, sewer and stormwater management documents will be easily accessible in relation to their geographic locations or other search criteria important to infrastructure management personnel nationwide. The Sajara software framework will provide a much more efficient means of searching for historic data than rummaging through stacks of hardcopy drawings, particularly in the event of a water main break or other emergency situation.

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