{"id":585027,"date":"2026-07-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?post_type=blog&p=585027"},"modified":"2026-07-03T14:48:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:48:46","slug":"how-yvwd-turned-leak-reporting-into-actionable-water-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/how-yvwd-turned-leak-reporting-into-actionable-water-intelligence","title":{"rendered":"How YVWD Turned Leak Reporting into Actionable Water Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Micah Knox, Resource Specialist, Yucaipa Valley Water District<\/em><\/p>\n\n

The Yucaipa Valley Water District (YVWD), established in 1971, is a vital public agency dedicated to managing water resources for Yucaipa, Calimesa, and unincorporated areas of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in Southern California. Located approximately 75 miles east of Los Angeles and 12 miles southeast of San Bernardino, YVWD operates within the Upper Santa Ana Valley groundwater basin, specifically the Yucaipa groundwater subbasin, which spans about 40 square miles and is adjacent to the San Bernardino and San Timoteo subbasins. The district provides essential services including high-quality drinking water, recycled water, wastewater collection and treatment, and brine disposal, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n

Through the integration of Esri ArcGIS Field Maps and ArcGIS Survey123 and Microsoft Power Automate, the district has become a front-runner in meeting California\u2019s new leak registry requirements and has effectively solved the problem of quantifying all water loss across the entire system with one simple form. We have created background water-loss formulas through Survey123 that can accurately calculate water lost from a pipe based on several parameters, and integrated extensive visibility logic that turns a single-use form into a multiuse water-loss form for all applicable categories across our system. Additionally, most information autopopulates from field maps, making the job of a water operator easier, less time-consuming, and more accurate than before.<\/p>\n\n

Challenge<\/h2>\n\n

As a district dedicated to providing high-quality drinking water, one of our biggest hurdles comes in the form of preventable water loss. Not only that, but being able to quantify water loss, geolocate and visualize the leaks, and diagnose the issue at the source has proved difficult for us and many other districts in the past.<\/p>\n\n

So how does a water district improve its water-loss numbers? Replace all pipes? While this solution would more than likely fix a system for a considerable while, the cost and time allocated to such a project are nearly unquantifiable.<\/p>\n\n

The answer is rooted in reporting. By reporting leaks in a service area with more accurate data and just more data in general, we set the district up to successfully allocate resources to specific problem areas.<\/p>\n\n

Previous reporting efforts fell short due to insufficient technologies and reporting errors. Operators in the field were using a dated survey application with poor operating capabilities for our needs, especially considering the newly changed regulations. The user interface was clunky, and the administrator side was a nightmare to work on, especially in running calculations and trying to create smooth workflow. And operators were too busy actively stopping a leak to input estimations of water-loss numbers, so the numbers that field staff received were either null or inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n

The solution? Field Maps and Survey123 Connect.<\/p>\n\n

Solution<\/h2>\n\n

To understand the scope of work and the nature of the solution, it\u2019s important to understand how the YVWD service area is set up. Yucaipa is in an area with lots of mountains and valleys. We have a surface elevation gain of 3,140 feet from bottom to top (the low being 2,044 feet and the high being 5,184 feet), giving us 18 separate pressure zones. For reference, a medium sized water district averages 3\u201310 pressure zones, so what we have is significantly more. This creates pressure variation across the system that must be considered when calculating water loss.<\/p>\n\n

Simplifying Reporting in the Field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

To begin, we set up a map in Field Maps with individual layers of our pipe infrastructure, well locations, sample stations, reservoirs, and hydrants. By including all these extra layers on top of our pipe layer, we can monitor water loss in every iteration. Whether we\u2019re monitoring a leak, authorized or unauthorized discharge, engineering fire flow, hydrant flushing, tank rehabilitation, sample station routing, or bacteria sampling, our form can handle and categorize all of it. Each asset has a unique Asset_ID and metadata. This data includes pipe diameter and material from the pipe layer, plus the asset installation date for all other layers including the aforementioned pipe layer. This data is available via pop-up when clicked alongside the Report Leak\/Discharge button. When the user clicks this button, a webhook sends them directly to the Survey123 application while also transferring all data from that specific asset into fillable fields. This allows operators to have data filled in from the pipes they\u2019re actively working on, creating a headache-free way to acquire tedious information. The Field Maps intro to the survey is a huge leap for our operators as it allows them to worry more about the leak they\u2019re fixing and less about what data they need for proper reporting. This also means the report receives more valuable information than ever, with the bonus of it all being uniform and consistent. We don\u2019t have to worry about an operator being too busy working on a leak to input all necessary data for reporting, because the form has seamlessly done it for them.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe fire flow form is a great tool for managing efficient and accurate system flows. The ease of use makes for a convenient system test that is easily transferable to our hydraulic model.\u201d<\/strong> Matt Vara, YVWD Public Works, Engineering Supervisor<\/p>\n\n

\n
\"\"
This leak was photographed by our public works department staff using ArcGIS Survey123.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

Calculating Water Loss<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The point of this form is to calculate\u2014as accurately as possible\u2014an estimated water-loss number based on whatever data we can easily acquire within our system. As a team, we were met with the challenge of creating a bulletproof formula that does just that. With California regulations being brand-new, seemingly no other water district had a way of calculating this, so we were left to devise and integrate this formula into Survey123. Additionally, we wanted to make it easy enough that anyone could pick up a device and do it, with little to no training required.<\/p>\n\n

This posed problems from the start as we wanted to make sure actual inputs from operators were minimal in order to remove any potential errors from the equation. We eventually came up with this equation:<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

The equation can be broken down to its specific parts:<\/p>\n\n