7 Cities Begin National Database of Water Pipe Infrastrucure

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7 Cities Begin National Database of Water Pipe Infrastrucure

WATER PIPE INFRASTRUCTURE DATABASE GEOSPATIAL INTERNET ENVIRONMENT

Summary: About 40 percent of water is lost due to leaks. With funding

from the EPA and NSF, Virginia Tech researchers are creating the

prototype of a national internet-based geospatial database of

underground water pipes.

Newswise — A group of Virginia Tech faculty and researchers are

working to create the prototype of a national internet-based

geospatial database of underground water pipes with funding from the

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.

The project is a collaboration between Sunil Sinha, project leader and

associate professor in the Via Department of Civil and Environmental

Engineering, Randy Dymond, associate professor in the department and

co-director of Virginia Tech's Center for Geospatial Information

Technology (http://www.cgit.vt.edu/), Dickerson, research

associate, and Rahul Vemulapally, civil and environmental engineering

graduate student from Warangal, India.

" Underground water pipes are the nation's arteries " said Sinha.

" Unfortunately, they are not in a very healthy state. About 40 pecent

of the water is lost because of leaks and other structural damage. "

Sinha added that it is difficult to monitor and maintain underground

pipes, but a standardized, web-based geospatial database of the

existing infrastructure information would be very helpful to water

utility companies and municipalities.

The Internet prototype application will be created based on

underground water and sewage pipe information supplied by three of the

17 cities that are partnering with Sinha and the Center for Geospatial

Information Technology. " We are currently receiving data in different

formats from Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Seattle -- the three pilot

cities, " said Dymond. " One of [the center's] jobs is to take this

diverse information and create a standard format that could be used by

all partnering cities. "

The geospatial database will include rich, interactive maps of the

water pipe infrastructure, as well as data exploration tools and

reports. " Users will be able to pan and zoom or easily identify

attributes such as pipe diameters, size, or current condition, "

explained Dickerson.

The development of the geospatial database application is part of a

group of large-scale water infrastructure projects that Sinha is

managing at Virginia Tech. The overall objective of the on-going water

infrastructure research at Virginia Tech is to improve the

decision-making process as it applies to water pipe infrastructure

asset management and renewal programs.

The data received from the partnering cities are stored on San Diego

Supercomputer Center managed by the National Science Foundation and

supervised by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Only Virginia

Tech has full access to the data through the team of faculty and

researchers involved in the project. All participating utilities have

limited access to this national water pipe infrastructure database.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/539587/