Using Geospatial Data To Facilitate Post Hurricane Recovery of Infrastructure in Coastal Environments.

By: Christopher John Contreras

Purpose of study : For years a nemesis of coastal property owners and public utilities alike has been the fury of a raging hurricane and the devastation left in its wake. Yet the majority of the damages incurred to public water system infrastructure arise during the clean up of the hurricane aftermath. Oftentimes heavy machinery is used to clear sand and debris deposited on the road ways by wind and storm surge. In some places the layer of debris can accumulate up to three feet in thickness and completely cover existing water infrastructure components such as fire hydrants, valves, meter boxes, etc. Inevitably, some of these buried components are either dislodged or completely destroyed while an unsuspecting heavy equipment operator is clearing the roadways. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a geospatial inventory system designed to mitigate post hurricane damages.

Method : To successfully and accurately map the existing infrastructure a base layer of data must first be acquired or generated. These data are used to give logical and geographic consistency to the mapped area. The base data layers used along with the reason for which they were chosen are as follows:

Base Data: Digital Color Orthographic Aerial Photography: Acquiring current aerial photography allows the viewer to gain a point of reference, such as buildings, roads, and water bodies, to assist in the visualization of the project work area. For this particular project the existing digital orthographic photography (two foot spatial resolution) supplied at the Onslow County tax office was sufficient. Parcel Data: Obtaining parcel data, which was also supplied from the Onslow tax office, allows the viewer to identify road rights-of-way. This is an important part of the mapping process due to the fact that the majority of the water utility infrastructure is located within these rights-ofway. Once the base data has been obtained and displayed using GIS software, such as ESRIs ArcGIS, it is then necessary to create and populate data layers that represent the existing infrastructure. A highly accurate Trimble GPS unit is used to insure sub-meter accuracy for each feature. A data dictionary is also created to facilitate the collection of tabular data that is associated with each feature type.
Onslow County Orthos taken March 2006.

Analysis of Data : After the data collection of both primary and secondary features, maps can then be used to analyze the system and determine where critical shut off valves exist. To test the effectiveness of the system, a water utility serviceperson uploaded all the geospatial data into the handheld GPS device. Once upload was complete the service person was able to navigate back to the exact location (+/- 3 feet) of each water feature. Also, a person unfamiliar with the water infrastructure was likewise able to navigate successfully back to each feature.

Before July 1996

After July 1996

Onslow County Parcel Date Overlaying Orthos.

Individuals not familiar with the infrastructure locations have no trouble finding valves with the help of the Handheld GPS device

Hurricane Ophelia 9-14-2005

Hurricane Ophelia 9-14-2005

Hypothesis : The destruction of public water utilities by heavy equipment during post hurricane clean up can be significantly reduced by employing the technologies of GIS, GPS, Photogrammetry, and mobile computing to map and catalogue existing infrastructure.

Potential valve and hydrant locations

GPS Data: Corporate knowledge: The use of field personnel was paramount in order to capture each feature via GPS. Service people, who have intimate field knowledge of what is in the ground and where it is located, can quickly assist in finding each feature to capture. Features are divided into two groups of Primary and Secondary. The primary features entails components that could cause severe leaks if disrupted like hydrants, valves, water mains, etc,. Secondary features consisted of service lines and meters. These are considered secondary because leaks can usually be controlled at the meter with a service valve. As-built Drawings: Some features were not able to be located by exploration with the help of field crews and had to be found by referencing engineer As-Built drawings. Information on these drawings was used to help attribute the information collected. (Water line sizes, water line materials, valve and meter types, etc,.) New Construction: Since development is an ongoing process, frequent trips to the field were necessary to capture new water lines and meters that were being installed.

GPS Data Capture of Features.

Conclusion The ability to find features by location, rather than sight, allow utility service workers to identify buried water features by placing small, blue flags above each feature. The blue flags will signal to others the location of utility infrastructure and notify heavy equipment operators to use hand shovels to excavate around the marked area. This has the potential to mitigate both hurricane destruction and post hurricane excavation destruction of vital infrastructure. This, in turn, can save millions of dollars in repair costs as well as enable the utility company to return service to its customers in a fraction of the time.

Hurricane Fran 1996

Hurricane Ophelia 9-14-2005 Overlay GPS data on Base Layers.