{"id":578206,"date":"2025-08-26T23:15:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?post_type=blog&p=578206"},"modified":"2025-08-26T23:15:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:15:53","slug":"facsas-gis-journey-from-paper-maps-to-a-spatial-digital-twin","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/facsas-gis-journey-from-paper-maps-to-a-spatial-digital-twin","title":{"rendered":"Facsa\u2019s GIS Journey: From Paper Maps to a Spatial Digital Twin"},"content":{"rendered":"
Five years ago, more than 90 percent of Facsa\u2019s workforce relied on paper maps to interact with geographic information system (GIS) data. Fast-forward to today\u2014the Spanish water utility has achieved complete GIS democratization, with over 350 users accessing geospatial technology tools daily to improve water cycle management, asset performance, and sustainability.<\/p>\n\n
From Legacy to Leadership<\/h2>\n\n
Facsa is a company with over 150 years of experience and is dedicated to the comprehensive management of the water cycle. It is also a driving force behind new ventures such as waste valorization and bioenergy. The company employs more than 1,500 professionals in eight regional offices across Spain.
Facsa operates over 260 wastewater treatment plants, serving a population of more than 2.5 million people. The company provides clean drinking water daily to over 2,500,000 residents in more than 300 towns and cities.
Technology and innovation are pillars of the company\u2019s strategy to address the challenges involved in delivering essential resources such as water, waste disposal services, and bioenergy\u2014sectors that are critical to the well-being, development, and socioeconomic resilience of communities. In line with this commitment to innovation, Facsa began its GIS journey in 1986, but by 2020, it was clear a change was needed. \u201cDuring the Smallworld era, there were five people [connecting] directly to the GIS using desktop software,\u201d recalled Joan Pere Avariento Vicent, Facsa\u2019s head of GIS. \u201c[Staff throughout] the rest of the company had a thin client . . . but they didn\u2019t use it because it was really slow and didn\u2019t provide focused functionality\u201d.
When Avariento joined the company in 2020, his first major challenge was to lead the transition from legacy GIS technology to ArcGIS and enhance the strategic use of GIS across the organization. While GIS had already been in place for years, it was primarily being used as a static repository of geographic data. \u201cThere was great potential to go further,\u201d he explained. \u201cMuch of the interaction with GIS was limited to basic queries and printed maps, but the foundations were there.\u201d
With Facsa expanding its operations across Spain and diversifying into new areas such as waste valorization and bioenergy, unlocking the full power of GIS became essential to support increasingly complex operations, optimize decision-making, and drive technological transformation across the company. Recognizing the untapped potential of Esri\u2019s ArcGIS platform, Avariento launched a bold plan to modernize Facsa network information management capabilities and implemented ArcGIS Utility Network. This foundation allowed Facsa to innovate and create a role-based ecosystem of applications tailored to diverse operational needs. By 2022, Facsa had fully transitioned to ArcGIS Enterprise and completed the company-wide deployment of a technology called GIS Corporate.<\/p>\n\n
A Role-Based, Integrated GIS Vision <\/h2>\n\n
One of Facsa\u2019s guiding principles was to ensure that GIS technology served everyone\u2014not just GIS experts. Of the 350 GIS users at Facsa today, only 7 are GIS professionals. The remainder are field crew members, engineers, inspectors, analysts, and managers\u2014all empowered through intuitive, purpose-built applications that span a wide range of use cases:<\/p>\n\n
\nGIS-powered outage management app enables Facsa to quickly respond to leaks and network incidents.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Smart metering solutions integrate with ArcGIS for spatial insights into water consumption.<\/li>\n\n
The Water Control Center app enables customer service to locate incidents in real time, assess affected areas, and generate automatic notifications.<\/li>\n\n
Outage dashboards offer live tracking and historical querying capabilities for nonoperational users.<\/li>\n\n
Work order dashboards integrate asset and incident data, enabling real-time assignment and asset-level reporting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
The strategic design of these tools reflects a fundamental belief. \u201cGIS democratization means bringing GIS to water business experts, focusing on business needs and business cases,\u201d said Avariento. \u201cReturn on investment, users\u2019 point of view, and user experience must be a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
GIS as a System of Systems<\/h2>\n\n
For Facsa, GIS is not just a visualization tool\u2014it\u2019s the connective tissue of the business. \u201cGIS offers us a holistic vision of all of the management system data,\u201d Avariento noted. Every component of the water cycle\u2014capture, treatment, supply, consumption, and sewer\u2014relies on data from siloed systems. But GIS brings those silos together.<\/p>\n\n
By using geospatial data as a bridge, Facsa can now correlate upstream causes with downstream impacts, regardless of whether they originate in the same system. \u201cWe could have many systems and some data in Excel or something like that,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut having different business data that\u2019s happening in the same place is really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
This geocentric approach is particularly valuable in asset management. Facsa evaluates infrastructure using two types of models:<\/p>\n\n
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Life-cycle-based models that track asset performance, maintenance history, and age<\/li>\n\n
Geospatial impact models that assess criticality by analyzing environmental context, customer impact, and failure consequences<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\u201cGIS helps us calculate the impact\u2014how critical is one asset, not just if it\u2019s connected in the network but [also] how many customers would be affected, or what is around that pump,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n
Digital Twins: From Vision to Execution <\/h2>\n\n
Facsa\u2019s long-term road map is rooted in the development of a digital twin\u2014a dynamic, data-driven replica of the company\u2019s infrastructure. The digital twin goes beyond visualization; it enables forecasting, scenario analysis, and sustainable planning. For example:<\/p>\n\n\nFacsa leverages GIS dashboards to assess and monitor the value of water infrastructure assets.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n
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A digital twin of the aquifer allows Facsa to simulate how droughts or extractions might affect water quality.<\/li>\n\n
Odor dispersion models use integrated real-time sensor data and weather forecasts to plan optimal waste truck routes, minimizing impact on urban areas.<\/li>\n\n
Capital improvement plans include real-time integration with hydraulic models to enable what-if simulations directly within the GIS platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\u201cGIS can become the system of systems that enables the creation of a digital twin to analyze and understand the behaviors of the network from a holistic perspective,\u201d Avariento said. <\/p>\n\n
Future-Focused and Limitless Potential <\/h2>\n\n
For Avariento, the most exciting part of working with ArcGIS is its creative potential: <\/p>\n\n
<\/cite>\u201cThe limit is not the technology. The limit is the imagination and the creativity.\u201d<\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/section>\n\n
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