GIS Application in Sewer Infrastructure: A Detailed Report

This report discusses the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in managing sewer infrastructure, particularly in US cities. GIS is presented as a crucial technological tool for collecting, visualizing, and analyzing geographic data to plan and implement developmental activities. The report highlights GIS's role in addressing challenges related to aging sewer systems, sewer overflows, and regulatory compliance. It details how GIS is used to create maps, integrate inspection data, and implement maintenance programs, enabling effective management of massive datasets. The report uses the example of the City of Hampton, Virginia, to illustrate the practical applications of GIS in infrastructure assessment, repair, and rehabilitation. The strengths of GIS-based applications include combining defects and rehabilitation data into a single database, facilitating tracking, reporting, and budgetary pricing. The weakness is the high initial investment. The report concludes by emphasizing GIS's effectiveness in providing real-time data for regulatory compliance and informed decision-making in the face of challenges such as sewer overflows.

Introduction
GIS or Geographical Information System is a technological tool that helps to collect
geographic data and use it to plan and implement various developmental activities. It helps
to visualize spatial data, analyse and interpret it and understand patterns and relationship
between datasets. Visualizing and analysing data on maps has an impact on our
understanding of data helping us understand what belong where. By establishing
relationship between unrelated data, GIS can empower organizations and individuals to
understand spatial patterns and relationships. Through GIS, a digital map can be created
which is of much more informative and valuable than the printed map on paper. This digital
version of map can be collated with other datasets for interpreting and analyzing
information through a graphical presentation. The GIS synthesizes large amounts different
information in datasets thus combining different layers of information to manage and apply
the data for useful purposes.
Application of GIS
GIS find its application in many areas. Such applications include socioeconomic and
environment modelling, topographical mapping, education. GIS can be applied to answer
location based questions such as what is located where or where to find particular features.
GIS can be used to find how much is the forest area, habitat loss, urban sprawl etc. on the
land use map. One can combine elevation data, land use data, river data and other
information to show information about the landscape of a particular area. From map one
can tell which is the best place to build house or which has the river view or where are high
lands located. GIS helps to find new information.

Apart from such useful applications GIS is also an effective tool for finding solutions to
problematic areas of water resources. Experts use GIS to collate various data and
information for useful applications for example managing water resources on a local or
regional level and assessing water quality of a region.
GIS water resource application in USA
Sewer systems of many old cities of the world including USA are in critical stages of
deterioration due to lack of maintenance and aging. Such deteriorated sewer infrastructure
is leading to frequent sewer overflows In USA, many such cities are facing regulatory
compliance for such sewer overflows. In the light of regulatory compliance the government
agencies are required to develop and implement sewer overflow control plans and carry out
mapping, inspection, monitoring of rehabilitation plans. For regulatory compliance, the
government agencies are collecting and collating massive data and information on the
condition of sewer system and related inventories in cities. However, challenge lies in the
cost effective management of this massive amount of data and monitoring the existing aging
sewer system infrastructure.
Fortunately, Geographic Information System (GIS) comes to rescue which is capable to
manage, interpret & analyze huge datasets. Integration of field inspection data with GIS
enables decision support system for the development of sewer rehabilitation plan. This
helps in planning the rehabilitation required to control the sewer overflows.
There are two critical steps in using GIS for regulatory compliance: (i) creating GIS maps of
the sewer system and (ii) implementing a GIS-based inspection and maintenance program.
Currently in USA a GIS-based inspection and maintenance of sewer system is done by using
commercial GIS software that links the sewer inspection and defect information contained

in a database or spreadsheet to corresponding map features. Such a system provides the
Consent Order communities with GIS maps of deteriorated sewer pipe network and sewer
repair works (pipe lining, bursting, replacement, manhole repair and replacement, etc.). The
system then generates a series of reports containing details of damage, recommended
action plan, and estimate of repair cost of damaged infrastructure. Finally, the GIS maps and
rehabilitation recommendation reports can be combined to generate what a project
manager ultimately needs - bid documents for the repair work.
For example, The City of Hampton, Virginia which is a home for 0.15 million people has a
sewer system infrastructure with 12,000 manholes and valves. The City carried out a survey
to find out locations of approx 8,000 manholes situated in various parts through GPS. The
GIS based software used in the city performs infrastructure assessment of manholes and
sewer pipelines, repair, rehabilitation works through work order management system. It
also has an interface for the CCTV inspection of sewers. It is used to synchronize data from
various sources for the sewer infrastructure database management. This provides a GIS map
containing comprehensive information on inspection, repair and rehabilitation.
Maintenance history and sewer system profile plots of specific areas are also available in
this application.
Application strength and weakness
The strength of the GIS-based application for inspection and maintenance of sewer
infrastructure lies in the fact that it allows combining sewer system defects and
rehabilitation data into a single database mapping. Such a single database can be used to
track and report inspection, maintenance and rehabilitation progress, generate budgetary
pricing for rehabilitation and repair works, generate bid documents for repair and

rehabilitation work, generate and update maps and reports to comply regulatory
requirements.
However, the weakness of the application lies in the fact that this technology is quite
expensive and incurs hefty investment in its establishment. There is also a possibility of
error creeping in the dataset which might lead to costly mistake designing using GIS utility
lines.
Conclusion
The application of GIS in managing sewer infrastructure system of US city is fascinating given
the fact it integrates information from many sources to create a useful database in real time
for use by the government agencies for inspection and repair of sewer overflows. The
beauty of this technology is attributed to the fact that despite huge set of database
management it involves, it combines them in a meaningful way to produce reports and
useful information for meeting regulatory compliance.
References
 Burrough, P. A & McDonnell, R. A. 1998, Principles of geographical information systems,
Oxford University Press, UK.
 Goodchild, M.F., Longley, P.A., Maguire, D. J. & Rhind, D.W 2001, Geographic information
systems and science, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. , England.
 Shamsi, U.M. 2009. GIS Applications for regulatory compliance. Journal of Water
Management Modeling, R235-04. doi: 10.14796/JWMM.R235-04.
 ArcNews 2001. GIS Goes with the Flow. ArcNews, Vol. 23, No. 1, Spring 2001, ESRI, 34-35.