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Bella Vista Water District

 

VESTRA assisted the Bella Vista Water District (BVWD) in the development of a Geographic Information System (GIS) based upon ESRI technology. The challenge was to create a functional GIS starting with only a set of seven-year-old paper atlas maps with accompanying CAD layer containing only mainlines used for master-planning, an Excel spreadsheet used as the valve database, and basemap data provided by Shasta County. There was a tremendous amount of missing source data, so VESTRA adopted a data development approach that would logically generate missing data through applied network knowledge and geoprocessing of the available data and information. This raw output was then compared to the existing valve database and put through several rounds of quality control corrections by maintenance crews (with expert knowledge of the actual water distribution system) to arrive at an acceptable result. 
 
During the GIS development, VESTRA accomplished the following:
 
  • Performed a GIS needs assessment and a follow-up report that described the priorities for GIS data, data model, tools and applications
  • Created a modern geodatabase design and schema using UML and Microsoft Visio for the GIS water distribution network feature dataset
 
Performed extensive geo-processing on the available CAD data in order to:
 
  • Create tees, crosses and blow-off valves where they should logically be present in the water distribution network
  • Convert available mainline diameter annotation (in CAD) into GIS attributes
  • Perform upstream/downstream geo-processing to logically fill gaps in the mainline attributes
  • Generate atlas page attributes on each asset through GIS overlay with an available map index
  • Create unique IDs for all asset types (excluding valves, which already had a useable ID)
  • Create a new symbolset and programmatically rotated symbols for all asset types requiring rotation (e.g. fittings, check valves)
 
VESTRA developed a tool to quickly create isolation valves at standard (cartographic) distances from fittings, number (ID) them sequentially, and assign the diameter of the underlying mainline. VESTRA then used this tool to create isolation valve points (junctions), using the old paper atlas maps as the data source. This proved to be much more efficient than digitizing.
 
As part of the quality control effort, VESTRA temporarily joined the Excel spreadsheet of valves to the newly constructed GIS isolation valve feature class to compare the diameter attribute adopted from the mainline feature class to the diameter attributes located in the existing valve database to identify inconsistencies in the databases. In this fashion, the existing valve database could be used to verify both the valve and mainline attributes. VESTRA created printed maps for maintenance crews so that they could help resolve the conflicts. Duplicate entries in the valve database were also found, reported, and resolved.
 
At the conclusion of the quality control effort, VESTRA migrated all available data into a single geodatabase and delivered the final data product as a single file to BVWD. VESTRA then deployed the ESRI atlas page creation tool at BVWD and provided user training. VESTRA also developed, deployed and provided user documentation and training for a set of GIS data maintenance productivity tools (installed as an ArcMap extension).
 
These included:
  •  ID Generator – Creates sequential IDs for new assets using a map index
  •  Symbol Rotator – Automatically rotates the symbols for specific assets parallel or perpendicular to the mainline or lateral as appropriate
  •  Lateral Creator – Creates water service lines or hydrant laterals perpendicular to the closet mainline when the user clicks on a hydrant or meter point (optionally, automatically creating adding a shut-off valve)
  • Sticky Attributes – Accepts general attribute entries and code value selections (project ID, diameter, material, etc.) and thereafter automatically populating those entities and values across all feature classes sharing the same attribute name (overriding the default attribute valves)
 
During the final phase of the project, VESTRA deployed and provided user documentation and training for collecting GPS data (to improve the spatial accuracy of the GIS database) using a Trimble GeoXT, plus GPS Analyst, GPS Correct, and ArcPad software.