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The overlap of different fields has made it easy to introduce a real development of new technologies. New techniques used in the water sector are introduced; the importance of integration with each other will be increased to work as one unit with more efficiency and effectiveness. Integrating the real-time control of a supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) and the data management and analysis capabilities of a geographic information system (GIS) can assist operators and decision-makers in disaster response and better system control. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the potential use of SCADA in conjunction with GIS to control and manage a water desalination plant network. The aid of the developed integrated system in the management of a water desalination system can be accessed on an interactive single dashboard for the network to simulate real situations through the data collected at each site that can be provided in real-time by SCADA, in addition to the results of analysis of these data that help to take the right decision and deliver the instructions thereon directly to the field devices to deal with any case of emergencies. In addition, this paper introduces an implementation approach of a new category of decision-support tools based on the integration of GIS and SCADA in implemented water desalination plants at the National Water Research Center (NWRC). A general review of both systems including their potentials in water desalination systems and the possibility of integration with each other has been introduced. This study demonstrates how integrating GIS and SCADA into a single dashboard can aid in data acquisition and provide a better understanding of the communication between the various sites and systems' facility administration, despite the fact that such integration is uncommon because both systems use different IT platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disaster management for urban areas is a growing priority owing to factors such as the relentless migration to cities, unplanned development, changing climate, and increasing operational and maintenance costs. New information and communication technologies offer improved opportunities to address these factors. This paper presents and describes the digital city concept as a means of capturing, analysing and applying (digital) information about the city area, its services, and their design and operation. In particular, the functionality of the digital city can be adapted for managing urban flood disasters. The paper highlights the need to manage the urban stormwater cycle integrated with urban planning. Urban flooding should be mitigated by having a judicious mix of both structural and nonstructural strategies, which are selected with the full participation of all stakeholders. The management of urban flooding is illustrated with application to the tropical island of St Maarten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the relationship between urban road network density and urban runoff coefficient in the coastal plain of Israel. The study assessed 30 years of recorded changes in rainfall-runoff coefficient in an urban catchment in the coastal plain of Israel. Rain and runoff were measured and sampled at measurement stations. Insight into the factors affecting urban runoff was gained by applying GIS and remote-sensing analysis, including street network density assessment and urban impermeable area recognition. Street network density was found to be a reliable indicator for both urban impermeability (R2 = 0.83) and runoff (R2 = 0.92) change dynamics, showing a strong linear correlation. Thus the urban street drainage network can help explain the dynamics of change in urban runoff. To prevent urban flooding hazards, and to help conserve water resources, regional planners should take into consideration road network density in built-up areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and human activities have changed a number of characteristics of river flow in the northwest of China. Numerous problems such as water resource shortage, drying up of rivers, water pollution are the direct consequences of these changes. In this paper, we used the example of Yulin city in northwest China to assess the spatio-temporal characteristics and driving forces of annual river flow changes. Our research was based on the long-term time series of hydrological data from 1956 to 2005, to analyse annual flow in four main rivers (Kuye River, Tuwei River, Wuding River and Jialu River). The river flow depends upon the runoff characteristics of the river catchment, therefore we used variation ratio, variation index, unevenness, Runoff-Concentration Degree (RCD) and Runoff-Concentration Period (RCP) to determine the change in runoff characteristics of the four main rivers flows of the Yulin city. We tested the tendency of runoff by the Mann-Kendall non-parameter statistical method to obtain the temporal evolution law. At the same time, Kriging spatial interpolation and GIS were used to derive the spatial evolution law. The dates of climate change (precipitation) and human activities were also used to calculate the driving forces for annual runoff changes of the rivers’ catchments. Through the accumulation curves and multi-recursive techniques, we built the correlation between precipitation and runoff. The driving factors for annual runoff change were then calculated by using the runoff coefficient method. Results showed that the distribution of annual runoff was uneven and had a small accumulation in July and August, especially in Kuye River, and there seemed to be a significant reducing trend in annual runoff. Isolines and the thematic map of Mann-Kendall tests U(R) revealed that the Tuwei River's catchment is the most affected catchment, with annual runoff substantially changed. At the 5% significance level, precipitation did not significantly drop compared with annual runoff. We also found that precipitation is not the only factor responsible for the decreased annual runoff. Therefore we included human activities affect in this case study by using the past 25 years land use, water conservancy and urbanisation data. We discriminated the impacts of climate change and human activities on the surface runoff by multi-recursive analysis method and runoff coefficient method. The results showed that human activities are the direct cause for the changes of river runoff. The results of the study also revealed that the Wuding and Jialu rivers had the most and the least changes in the runoff respectively; this phenomenon should be seriously considered for future water resources planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Water Shortage Risk (WSR) map is a tool to establish priorities to take actions in the management of Urban Water Supply Systems (UWSS). This work presents a methodology combining elements of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess urban water shortage levels. The study case is Campina Grande, a Brazilian city which represents other cities of semi-arid with similar conditions, such as dry climate, water rationing periods and a mixed-income population. The WSR approach uses seven criteria, including hydraulic, socio-economic, and infrastructure and a set of weighted functions. The method used for weight allocation is the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Results show the WSR map as a dynamic tool, once it can be complemented with utility and operational data. The WSR map, combined with control variables, can be a planning instrument for automation and operational control and also for highlighting the inequalities in water supply services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low value and high volume buried infrastructure assets in the water distribution network are typically less well understood and often sub-optimally managed in comparison to more critical or higher value assets. This is despite attracting an estimated yearly expenditure from water utilities operating in the developed world in excess of £4.42 billion per annum. To address this problem the authors have developed a novel deterioration modelling framework founded on latest geospatial technologies and statistical analysis. The modelling framework is specifically applied to truly small diameter water distribution assets of 25–50 mm diameter. Reliability curves are developed from failure data provided by two UK Water Companies that have captured communication pipe failure records since 2001. Failure projections based on deterioration modelling curves are compared and contrasted to demonstrate the robustness of this modelling approach. A high degree of accuracy is observed for all pipe materials achieving anR2values greater than 0.96. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research microscopically estimates the spatial distribution of water demand and aims to use this to improve the existing zone system. So, this study used geographic information system (GIS) to predict the spatial distribution of water demand according to building unit by applying the basic unit of water use by purpose. Based on the results, the buildings were then grouped into blocks to produce a methodology for controlling small districts using a microscopic approach to decrease the water supply load based on water demand per block. Finally, verification was conducted by quantitatively evaluating the load-decreasing effect through the application of the above methodology. We evaluated efficiency and verified the study's methodology by analysing urban areas that had been Manhattanized and densificated, finding a reduction of approximately 16.7%. The possibility of expanding the study's scope to medium and large districts was suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two types of dual drainage models were set up to assess urban flooding for a study area in Germany: (1) a static model based on a conventional method in Germany; the overflow volumes of the manholes are gained by the sewer solver HYSTEM-EXTRAN. Using these water volumes and geographic information system (GIS) tools, an overland flow network, composed of flow paths and accumulated water in sinks, is produced, (2) a HYSTEM-EXTRAN 2D model; a two-dimensional (2D) overland flow module is coupled bi-directionally with HYSTEM-EXTRAN. The overland flow and the flow in the sewer system are simulated alternately. Both models were supplied with a synthetic design rainfall and 25 extreme storms. After comparing the models and the results, a practical approach to assess urban flooding is proposed. In this approach the 2D model will compute the depth, extent, and propagation of floods only in the prone areas specified by the static model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A semi-distributed hydrological model has been developed in this study for determining runoff in an ungauged peri-urban catchment of north east India. In the absence of discharge data, the study has focused on how to improve the accuracy of runoff prediction based on imperviousness determination by spatial method. The imperviousness is defined in terms of total impervious area (TIA) and effective impervious area (EIA). The study highlights misclassification as one of the factors causing error in imperviousness determination. It is recommended that integrating GIS data with high resolution satellite imagery can be an effective solution to minimise misclassification. The predicted peak runoff was 33.4% larger when GIS based imperviousness is employed in the model. The peak runoff was 72.2% more in 2006 as compared to 1980 due to an increase in imperviousness, which is attributed to urbanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of standardised precipitation index (SPI) may lead to an understanding of a droughts magnitude and duration and thus contributing to integrated drought management options. Greece, a semi-arid country, has very often faced the hazardous impacts of droughts. The worst drought on record lasted from 1989 to 1993, and affected all the country, particularly the urban water supply of Athens metropolitan area. Rainfall time series from 41 rain stations were used to calculate SPI, for time scales of 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. Forty eight (48) interpolation surfaces were produced and assessed using historical data and statistical parameters for the SPI spatial visualisation through GIS kriging of the 1989–1993 drought. The results suggest the use of SPI as a drought monitoring tool, namely in areas with a distinct dry season, supporting drought forecasting and assisting integrated strategies for drought management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Water resources, ecological quality, i.e. vegetation, flora-fauna, native plants, etc., and geo-morphological characteristics are some of the important elements that represent health of a watershed. Watershed health can be assessed through some of the indirect metrics, such as change in rainfall-runoff response, depletion of groundwater, groundwater pollution and degradation of geo-morphological characteristics. In the present study, application of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technologies have been demonstrated for assessment of health of two urbanised sub-watersheds over a period of last 29 years (1977-2005). Investigation includes estimation of urbanisation and resulting changes in the watershed characteristics representing heath of watershed, such as change in surface runoff response, groundwater level, groundwater quality and morphological characteristics. Remote sensing images of eight years (1977-2005) have been used for extraction of land use/cover and urban growth. Change in surface runoff characteristics have been estimated using a physically based distributed storm water management model (SWMM). Groundwater analysis has been carried out in GIS to determine the change in groundwater level and quality over a period of 1992 to 2005. Results reveal that rate of land development in Ajmer is higher as compared to the population growth. Significant changes have been found in important watershed characteristics leading to deterioration of its health. Remote sensing and GIS technologies have been found to be useful for such studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A methodology for evaluating leakage or physical ‘unaccounted for water’ (UFW) owing to high pressure in water networks is developed. Considering the crisis of water supply issues in large cities owing to increases in population, quantifying the UFW in terms of both physical and non-physical losses of water in the network to improve the system efficiency represents an important issue that managers need to consider. A pilot site is used to demonstrate the methodology, including the spectrum of network data for spatial and attributed data stored in a GIS database. Via use of an interface extension tool, the data were transformed into the EPANET model. After hydraulic simulation using mathematical formulae, leakage discharges from the network are quantified and the results provide estimates of the percentage of physical UFW, allowing comparison with the modelling and the measurements of total UFW in the network Physical losses in the pilot site area are determined to be 13% and the non-physical losses (e.g. under-registering of metered amounts) as 19.7%, for a total of 32.7% of the total water supplied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of causes of water quality problems in distribution systems (DS) is often a difficult task because of the wide variety of factors that may be involved in describing their origin and propagation (treatment breakthrough, intrusion, transport, microbial regrowth, etc.). An integrated approach, along with an “interactive database analyser”, is proposed to better explain water quality problems occurring in DS. The approach is based on the consideration of various types of data, on multi-criterion database queries (investigation of DS events within specific spatial, hydraulic and temporal frames) and on data visualisation, which facilitates the analysis and identification of the probable cause (or causes) of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A GIS-based sewerage flow simulation and management system, which refers to a conventional combined sewerage (wastewater and stormwater) flow model, has been developed for use in the Sindang drainage district of Seoul. The system is designed for times when wastewater and stormwater are discharged via the same drainage pipe network and sewerage treatment works, the latter being bypassed during rain storm events and after high discharge events (e.g. a thaw after heavy winter snow). A chain topology generator was developed and deployed in collaboration with relational database spatial search and retrieval functions integrated by expert knowledge. Sewerage flow volume simulations for all pipelines allowed the calculation of preferable pipe sizes for calculated volumes under assumed conditions and thus the identification of pipes most prone to cause flooding if sewerage flow volumes increase due to redevelopment/population increase. The potential to produce information that can be used in decision-making support for redevelopment in any city with a similar wastewater drainage system can be assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]