AWWA INF55785

Historically, water supply studies and water system modeling pit limited financial resources against the cost of technology and the amount of detail used to analyze the water system. For example, water supply studies would only model pipes of limited sizes or analyze sub-areas of the overall system to make the study financially viable. As technology speeds forward, today's water purveyors compile information at a record pace. Information compiled by water purveyors typically includes GIS data sets, meter databases, record drawings, and SCADA data. Technology must be leveraged to simplify and manage these data sets to provide the water purveyors with cost effective solutions for their customers and to justify the expenditure incurred compiling this information. The Erie County Water Authority (ECWA) operates and maintains a water treatment and distribution system within Erie County, New York for water service to approximately 135,000 residential, commercial, industrial and municipal customers. A water supply study was undertaken for the Water Authority to analyze their water treatment, storage, transmission and distribution systems. The question then became how to analyze a large and complex system such as the ECWA while minimizing study costs. It was determined that the most effective way to analyze the water authority system was through the use of the latest water modeling technologies and database management techniques. This paper discusses how the enormous amount of ECWA compiled data was simplified through the use of technology in order to accomplish infrastructure assessment and analysis of the various treatment plants, pump stations, storage tanks, transmission and distribution mains composing the water system. Includes tables, figures.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

01/01/2002

Number of Pages:

15

File Size:

1 file , 300 KB