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AWWA IMTECH51427
- Water Pipeline Maintenance - A GIS Powered Decision Support System
- Conference Proceeding by American Water Works Association, 03/01/2000
- Publisher: AWWA
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Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) has the largest water utility in the state of Washington and one of the largest in the nation. Seattle's pipeline system, which supplies nearly 600,000 people with high-quality water, ranges in age from newly installed pipes to pipes that are over a hundred years old. Different pipe materials have been used over the years with varying installation quality, making pipeline failure prediction a challenging task. SPU's water engineers and managers have significantly reduced the time spent identifying and prioritizing water mains for preventive maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement by accessing water main characteristic information through Seattle's geographic information system (GIS). This paper describes how SPU developed and now utilizes GIS-based information in day-to-day decision making and capital improvement program preparation. The paper also reviews the object-oriented techniques and iterative, incremental software development life cycle used to develop the GIS application. Includes 3 references, figures.