Water resources are facing increased pressure from more extreme climate events, drought, and competing interests. State of the art technology is needed to overcome these many challenges. GIS is one technology which can provide solutions to many of these problems faced by water authorities.

Water Resources: How GIS can Help Overcome New Challenges?

Water Resources: Key New Challenges

Some of the many key challenges faced by water authorities today include:

– Reducing flood risk to the community and preventing future flood losses with the increasing frequency of more extreme climate events.

– Effectively managing short and long term supplies, impacted by drought and climate change, between competing domestic, industrial, agriculture demands

– Protecting the quality of ground and surface water at risk from development, drilling, mining, and other human impacts increase.

Today GIS is undergoing dramatic changes. Changes which are making GIS easier to afford, access and use. Let’s consider 4 key areas of new GIS and how these can help water authorities.

New Cloud Based GIS Platforms

Gone are the days when your organization needs to deal with the complexity and expense of setting up and hosting a GIS internally. Cloud based GIS is now here. That means others maintaining your GIS, simply set up a subscription to Esri’s ArcGIS for example and go. Its as simple as that. GIS subscriptions are very affordable even to the smallest utilities. Internal staff are no longer required to maintain and update your GIS. It has never been easier to administer a GIS and publish maps.

If cloud based GIS solutions are not your cup of tea, with releases like Portal for ArcGIS, you can now host your own version of ArcGIS Online inside your firewall.

Centralized, Authoritative Data

We once lived in a world where authoritative data was hard to find. Reliable reservoir data was over here, updated flow data over there. A GIS provides a central system for all your data. Your organizations authoritative data or system of record. Anybody in your organization who needs access to any asset or asset related data can simply access your GIS.

Mobile Maps, Mobile GIS Apps

Mobile devices – smartphone, and tablets – are transforming society. Today we all carry miniaturized computers, which know through GPS where they are at all times. Apps which provide interactive maps are extremely popular. GIS not only provides maps, it allows field staff to more efficiently get their jobs done.

We have been building a simple asset management mobile ArcGIS application which works both online and offline, is configurable and runs on any device and any platform (Apple, Android, Windows). Its an elegant solution for those who are looking to move away from ArcPad or cannot afford enterprise GIS asset management platforms. Other tools are included with the application including measure, draw, print, and editing tools.

New Configurable GIS Applications for Water Authorities

There has been a new move in the world of GIS to provide focused, targeted configurable applications. Esri have been particularly busy here. ArcGIS for Water is a suite of applications designed to solve specific challenges. Whether it is monitoring drought conditions, storm response, searching and locating assets, responding to emergencies, generating reports or connecting with customers. There is an easy to set up application designed for that purpose.

We’ve been helping water focused customers quickly set up and configure many of these configurable applications.

There is increasing pressure on precious water resources. Management of these resources demands state of the art technology. GIS will be one key technology which will help to overcome these many challenges.

Read our post on Monitoring Flooding using ArcGIS.

Contact us for more information on 801-733-0723.