Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

Implementation of GIS for Water

Resources

Contents
Contents...................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction................................................................................................................. 2
Methodology............................................................................................................ 2
The Benefit of GIS in Water Resources ....................................................................3
The Driving Force for the Implementation of GIS in Water Resources Sector .........4
Acceptance GIS by the Staff and Consciousness of Staffs about GIS .....................4
The Difficulties to Implement GIS-Technologies in Water Resource Sector .............5
What are the Future Perspectives of GIS use in Water Resources Sector ...............5
Discussion................................................................................................................ 6
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 6
References .............................................................................................................. 6

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 Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

Introduction

The use of Geographical Information system (GIS) different sector is increasingly spread. In
various disciplines GIS provides a framework for information integration communication,
collaboration and decision support directly or indirectly. In water resources sector Geographical
Information System (GIS) have become an important means for understanding and dealing with
the problems of water and related recourses management in our world. GIS concepts and
technologies help us collect and organize the data about problems and understand their spatial
relationships. Its analysis capabilities provides a means ways for modeling and synthesizing
information that contribute to supporting decisions for resource management across a wide range
of scales. However because of different reasons during implementation there has been at least
partly a failure. The main reason for these failures is bad planning, neglecting the preparation
phases, unawareness of technical complications and so on.

In this report we will examines how various combinations of geographic information system has
benefited water resources sectors development. And also deal with the precaution measures that
need to be taken during planning and preparation for implementation in order to get the best out
of GIS-Technology.

Methodology

The benefit of GIS software for water resource sector will be discussed in detail with regard to
hydrologic modeling, groundwater modeling, water quality, watershed delineation, and river
basin planning and management.

General lists of items that need to be taken in consideration during planning and preparation to
implement GIS in water Resource sector will be discussed. These items focus on the following
topics:

 The activities implemented using GIS for water resource development, the level of
advancement, lists of examples, which part of water resource sector uses GIS, and the
possibility of using GIS but not yet.

 The driving force for the implementation of GIS,

 The acceptance of GIS by the staff members and consciousness do they have towards
GIS.

 The Greatest difficulties in the implementation of GIS-Technology in water resource

sector

 Identify some part of activities that would use GIS but not yet used.

 Attitudes of the staff members towards GIS

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 Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

 The future expectation, the future development of GIS in water resource sectors.

 Staff recruiting for the implementation GIS in organizations and so on.

Generally this report we will examines how various combinations of geographic information
system and simulation models have been used to advance knowledge of water resource
assessment and management, and delivery of spatially distributed data, the advent of new
geographical information system tools, and the role of the system in hydrologic models and water
resources decision support accomplishments.

The Benefit of GIS in Water Resources

Geographical Information System (GIS) is useful tool in water resource

planning and management to incorporate spatial analyses for tasks such as
assessing water quality, estimating water availability, planning flood
protection, ground water survey, surface and ground water pollution,
estimation of river discharge, sediment transportation and so on. It also
helps to investigate the spatial variability of rainfall distribution.

The use of GIS in hydrological modeling is growing rapidly. Performing any hydrologic
modeling involves delineating streams and watersheds, and gets some basic watershed properties.
This includes the area of watershed, slope, flow length, and stream network density. Traditionally
this has been done manually by using contour maps. Nowadays With the availability of digital
elevation models (DEM) and Arc Hydro tools in GIS, watershed properties can be extracted by
automatic procedures (Lyon, 2003).

Recently developed, Arc Hydro groundwater tools also help to better manage groundwater and
subsurface data within ArcGIS. This tool provides a geodatabase template to archive groundwater
data and also help to create integrated database containing groundwater related data such as data
for aquifer maps and well database.

With regards to precipitation GIS helps to study the characteristics and distributions based on a
number of influencing factors including elevation, mountain slope and orientation, distance from
moisture sources, wind direction, and geographical location. According to Taher (1998) elevation
explains about 25% of variability in precipitation. Integrating GIS with radar rainfall data allows
implementing web-base solution to access precipitation data in real-time, display precipitation
and spatial analysis of that is otherwise not possible (Getterdam and Kshirsagar. S, 2002).

Integrating River basin planning and management models with GIS helped to simulate and
optimize the operation of reservoirs associated facilities to serve multiple purposes like,
hydropower, irrigation and water supply. River basin models and supportive GIS database
include representations for surface-water and groundwater hydrology to varying levels of
sophistication (Johnson 2009).

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 Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

At present GIS plays a central role in support of effects to monitor water-Quality changes within
a water body such as a river or bay, to calculate pollutant concentrations and loads to surface
water body, and to model water quality of aquatic systems (Shamsi, 2005). It also help to identify
the main source and direction of pointed and nonpoint sources of pollutants getting into the water
body.

Water-supply and irrigation systems are fundamental infrastructure components sustaining public
health and agricultural productivity. GIS tools are applied for assessment and evaluation of
Supply-facility alternatives. Estimation of demand is a fundamental GIS task that drives capacity
requirements. Pipe network and canal distribution systems are seen to be basic network for which
sophisticated simulation and optimization algorithms are applied using GIS (Johnson 2009).

The Driving Force for the Implementation of GIS in Water

Resources Sector

The main driving force for the implementation of GIS in water resources sector will be the
research department members. The staff members who are in charge of hydrological modeling,
water and environment pollution modeling, watershed delineation, flood protection and river
basin planning and management are expected to know the absolute benefit GIS-Technology.
Those who are working in these sections may be the main force for the implementation of GIS in
water resource sector.

Acceptance GIS by the Staff and Consciousness of Staffs about

GIS

Since GIS is well known software and its use is growing rapidly particularly in water resource
sector, someone who is working in Water Resources sector supposed to be aware of GIS. But the
acceptance GIS within the staff depends of the exposure of the person to the software. For
example someone is working in human recourse, finance, and administration department may not
accept the implementation of GIS to easily. Because those people who are working in these
departments are staff members might be more concerned about the cost than the benefit.
The cost to implement the software roughly includes:
 To buy high capacity computers to run the software,

 To buy the software license ,

 To give short and long term training for personnel in the staff to use GIS, to secure
and on-going maintenance of hardware and software and so on.
 To hire trainer who will give training for the staff

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 Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

The Difficulties to Implement GIS-Technologies in Water

Resource Sector

Right now I am a student but I will answer this question based on my expectation. The greatest
difficulties to implement GIS-Technologies in water resource sector may be shortage of sufficient
fund for the implementation, lack of skilled human power, lack of acceptance from some old
fashioned staff members or politicians and so on.
Additionally it is common that, when any organization trying to implement a new and complex
technology like GIS, is expected to face difficulties because so many reasons such as; bad
planning process, neglecting the preparation phases, being unconscious of complications. In order
to overcome these difficulties early preparation is necessary. Preparation for the implementation
of GIS needs to consider plenty of important points like;
 Identification of GIS implementation phases,
 Identification of GIS requirements for hardware, software, staff etc,
 Establish a new network to facility geographic data between participants;
 Develop new methods to update maps and related information.
 Ensure sufficient budget for the implementation of GIS
 Short and long term training for the staff member who potentially have a chance to work
with GIS
 Purchase necessary digital data for the application

What are the Future Perspectives of GIS use in Water

Resources Sector

The future contribution of GIS in water resources sector is extremely promising,

despite the fact that some individuals, departments and Organizations still do
not appreciate the opportunities of GIS beyond mapping. These bodies are still
reluctant to give sufficient budget for the incorporation of geographical
information system to everyday tasks.
GIS is expected to open a platform to collaboration exchange information,
communication in organizations. It will be used as global-wide operating system
for documentation management, storage and visualization of spatial infrmations.
Web-based data collection and analysis platform will be accessible for rainfall,
river discharge, sediment transport, flood frequency and etc.
In all line of development in water resource like hydrologic modeling, water
supply and irrigation, groundwater survey, environmental pollution protection

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 Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors

GIS will play an important role. And the use of GIS in water resource expected to
grow in broader context than used by special department staff members in the
future.

Discussion

The contribution GIS in the development of water resource is extremely important compared with
the traditional way of planning and management. It gives more accurate result than the traditional
methods. Beside the whole process in GIS is easily updatable with time and change. With regards
to cost benefit and time, traditional way of water resource planning and management have proved
to be extremely time consuming and expensive.
But even though GIS-Technology is proved to be useful tool for water resources planning and
management some problems which occur in course of its implementations should not be ignored.
Bad implementation planning, not having correct preparation phases, not being aware of
technical complications, not having sufficient fund for the implementation, not having motivated
skilled staff member who will use GIS will stop the implementation prematurely. These concern
mainly the human perception and ability to absolve information next to the need to acquire
knowledge.

Conclusion

Implementation of GIS in water resource sector is extremely beyond mapping. Its importance is
proved in all activities in water resource planning and management.

During planning for the implementation of GIS well designed preparation phases needed to
follow.

Make sure to have enough funds for the implementation GIS, to purchase hardware (computers
and accessories) software, skilled human power.

References

Getterdam.M , Kshirsagar. S, (2002), Using ArcIMS to Access GIS-Based Precipitation Data in

Real-Time

John G. Lyon (2003), GIS for water resources and watershed management

Lyon E. Johnsson (2009) Geographical Information System in Water Resources Engineering,

Page 257

Shamsi.U.M., (2005), GIS Applications, For Water, Wastewater and stromwater Systems

Taher.S., Alshikh.A., (1998), Spatial Analysis of Rainfall in Southwest of Saudi Arabia using
GIS, Nordic Hydrology

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Implementation of GIS in water resource sectors