Ancient, densely populated Bangalore, capital of the state of Karnataka in southern India, stands in sharp contrast to Adelaide, capital of the state of South Australia, with its sparse, far-flung population covering nearly a million square kilometers.

However, geographic and cultural differences aside, the challenges of maintaining a clean, reliable source of drinking water and modern wastewater treatment facilities have far more similarities than differences in the cities' respective use of GIS technology.

Bangalore's BISON Is a GIS Workhorse

The Bangalore Information Systems On Network (BISON) is the GIS of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). The company—comprising 60 service stations and five divisional offices, as well as its headquarters—needed a comprehensive solution to its ever-increasing information management demands. After extensive evaluation, BWSSB chose a complement of ArcGIS software components to develop BISON with the help of SCE Croatian.

BISON has three primary components. Each component is highly specialized and together they form a powerful, detailed system that allows BWSSB to easily manage and maintain its water/wastewater network:

• BISON Expert—Includes both GIS and management information system tools and is used to update and maintain the GIS database for the entire city. Applications include asset management, water supply maintenance, sewage maintenance, water quality management, consumers' management, billing system, and employee management.
• BISON Light—Is used by BWSSB's service stations for consumer-level issues, including new installations and complaints. It also maintains records for water supply and sewage system repairs and water sample results. Network information is also maintained by BISON Light, including the size, material, and age of the pipes and their connections.
• The Management Indicator Panel—Forms the third critical part of BWSSB's GIS and is used primarily to generate various monthly reports, which help in the monitoring and management of the water/wastewater system.

The BISON GIS was developed between 1999 and 2002 and has been fully operational since 2003. The system is maintained by Genesys International Corporation Limited (Denver, Colorado). The applications have been developed to suit the functional setup of BWSSB so the data naturally flows from the service stations and district offices to the company headquarters. ArcSDE is used for spatial database management. ArcInfo, ArcView, MapObjects, and ArcPress are also used. The applications generate and distribute consolidated results on a monthly basis in the form of reports and maps, reflecting the sound management of BWSSB. This facilitates the evaluation of the policies implemented and keeps the members of the board, the principal decision makers, and the general public informed of the company's activities.

For more information, contact R. Sukumaran, additional chief engineer, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (tel.: 91-80-22945116, e-mail: pmwac@bwssb.org).

Direction for SA Water

South Australia, the driest state in the world's driest inhabited continent doesn't take water for granted. Local officials have an acute understanding that water is essential for agriculture; industry; and, most important, human life. South Australia Water (SA Water), the region's government-owned water/wastewater utility company realized nearly two decades ago that careful water management was essential and that GIS could provide the analytical and technological capabilities necessary to squeeze every drop from its meager water supply. Thus, SA Water was the first utility in Australia to fully capture and store its entire water and wastewater network on a GIS.

As a result, SA Water accumulated detailed data on more than 32,000 kilometers of water and wastewater mains, water and wastewater treatment plants, reservoirs, pumping stations, tanks, valves, and even manholes and household drains. The data had also been integrated with the records of more than 800,000 land parcels and more than one million digital images of pipe as constructed drawings.

SA Water executive management endorsed a five-year GIS strategy to upgrade its GIS environment for the entire organization. The resulting implementation included the procurement of new hardware and software, migration of data, implementation of new data edit and Web distribution applications, and development of applications to enable the integration of GIS with other corporate systems.

GIS software in SA Water's new operating environment includes ArcGIS components—ArcInfo, ArcView, ArcSDE, ArcIMS—and the utility solution ArcFM from Esri Business Partner Miner & Miner (Fort Collins, Colorado). The new corporate GIS is used to capture, maintain, update, and analyze all of the water and wastewater reticulation asset information throughout South Australia. This allows the company to easily get a snapshot of accurate and up-to-date information about the network and greatly improve its customer service.

Part of the implementation included AquaMap, a customized version of Esri Australia Pty. Ltd.'s EView (built with ArcSDE and ArcIMS), which provides a spatial portal to other IT systems. AquaMap allows SA Water a seamless exchange of information among its GIS, water quality, works management, water restrictions, property, and plumbing audit systems.

With the implementation of AquaMap, SA Water staff members now have easy access to necessary data from the desktop. This allows them to more efficiently access accurate and up-to-date data from the GIS and other corporate systems, which has resulted in significant productivity improvements. The application provides easy access to data for all users on the SA Water network, including regional offices and remote dial-up users in country depots. No longer confined to the operational level, a wide range of staff throughout the organization is now using GIS, with more than 700 staff members currently trained in the use of AquaMap.

Concludes John Maitland, manager of spatial solutions at SA Water, "We can now easily check how our water and wastewater assets are performing and address areas of importance relating to customer service, operational management, economic development, investment, and strategic planning. AquaMap's ability to integrate disparate corporate databases into one interface has excited a new generation of GIS users, including managers, work planners, financial analysts, and system analysts."

For more information, contact John Maitland, spatial solutions manager, South Australia Water Corporation (e-mail: john.maitland@sawater.com.au).