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GIS for the planning and management of Sewer infrastructure in Mesaieed Industrial City, Qatar
A. Deva Kumar Varma
Qatar Petroleum, IT Department
PO Box 47, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar
dkvarma@hotmail.com
A. Deva Kumar Varma
Qatar Petroleum, IT Department
PO Box 47, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar
dkvarma@hotmail.com
Mesaieed Industrial City is located approximately 40 km south of Doha, the capital of Qatar. MIC is predominantly an industrial township with an industrial area, an excellent port and a small community with a population of a few thousand. The MIC management was established in 1996 by Qatar Petroleum (QP), a predominantly oil and gas company with diversified interests in Telecommunication, IT, City / Community management, Health Care, etc., as a single point authority to provide one stop service to do businesses in Mesaieed. Its industrial role is to develop a strategic plan for the allocation of infrastructure and services (Land, Port and Marine facilities, Utilities) to all businesses so that common facilities are utilized to capacity. As administrators of the Mesaieed community facilities, MIC interfaces and coordinates with existing businesses and new projects for temporary and permanent accommodation as well as the maintenance of all community facilities.
Information Technology Department (ITD) in QP took up the pilot project for implementing GIS in Mesaieed Industrial City a few years back at a time when the local government is harnessing its capabilities to help provide the best services to the community. MIC began to utilize GIS for the management of its sewer network with the completion of the pilot project’s first phase last year. Timing of this transition, from traditional to GIS, assumes particular significance as the city is all posed to embark on an ambitious expansion plan. The city is expected to provide services for a population at least thrice the current figure in the next three to five years. Urbanization on such a massive scale calls for planning and implementation of appropriate infrastructure by the local government to provide consistent services to its community.
As part of the pilot project ITD has modified the existing work flow procedures and developed a set of applications towards a completely GIS assisted sewer system. The applications are aimed at facilitating the users to automate their routine tasks and to relieve them from the manual and time consuming data entry and QA/QC checks with very little training. For planners, the decision support application in addition to providing access to all available data in one place they can as well easily manipulate, query and integrate data from different sources, including satellite and aerial photographs, and to prepare and print maps.
Spatial Data Infrastructure
Qatar is one of the countries that has a well established spatial data infrastructure (SDI). Under the leadership of H.H. The Emir of Qatar a premier institution called the Center for GIS (CGIS) was set up in the 1990s with the mandate to establish standards and to coordinate and assist various agencies in their GIS activities in the country. Within few years of its functioning CGIS became renowned for its activities and rose to the prestigious position of Center for Excellence in GIS within the Gulf region. GIS activities in the country are coordinated by a National Committee through sub-committees hierarchical in its representation from all major government agencies in the country. Qatar Petroleum (QP), known formerly as Qatar General Petroleum Corporation (QGPC), is a fully government owned company and is represented in the National Committee by its IT Department.
SDI has an excellent system for sharing data amongst the participating agencies. Each agency can publish their data for sharing as long as it conforms to the National standards as defined in the SDI documentation. Since the data that is shared conforms to SDI specifications national databases can be easily searched based on the published metadata. As per national standards ESRI is identified as the GIS software vendor and Oracle as the RDBMS for storing any GIS related data. As agreed by the National Committee the GIS data for publishing should be either as coverage or shapefiles, both are propriety formats of ESRI.
Qatar Petroleum follows the same standards set by the National Committee in general for both spatial and non-spatial data. Due to its diverse activities in different sectors involving vastly different functionalities (like municipality, telecom, health, transport, oil and gas, etc.) QP has, and is, building its own spatial data infrastructure, similar to the national effort, in those areas where none exists with CGIS / SDI.
The sewer system in Mesaieed is slightly different from the one as implemented in the national context. Many of the manual procedures followed by the traditional GIS system as mentioned in the National Committee were modified with enhanced features suited for a completely different and automated GIS system. Consequently, changes that were deemed necessary were made to the data structure, format, storage, and work-flow procedures. QP has, accordingly, defined its own spatial infrastructure for the sewer system in MIC. It is based on the existing one developed by the National Committee but modified to reflect the changes made to its basic structure and includes detailed description of databases, work-flow, data manipulation, data conversion, etc. Metadata for the spatial databases have been developed for data mining.
GIS Databases
Qatar Petroleum has a well-established and efficient network system managed by the IT Department. Leveraging the existing infrastructure, databases are implemented in a centralized computing environment with remote access over LAN/WAN. However, GIS applications require a lot of bandwidth and could easily choke the network with its extreme demand unless the applications are carefully tuned. Detailed studies were carried out to quantify the demand for bandwidth by the GIS system for MIC and several remedial measures adopted to deliver acceptable and consistent system performance. Spatial Database Engine (SDE) is found to provide enhanced system performance with bandwidth requirements as little as 1/5th of that without SDE. For serving data across the network QP has decided to exploit ESRI’s native SDE technology.
Spatial Data Management Strategy
Strategies for data management were evaluated based on its ability for ease of data manipulation (edit, add or delete) provides adequate security, fast retrieval, and integration with other data, especially AutoCAD. In a corporate environment as diverse as QP any new system should strive to integrate and not replace an existing system. And, the strategy is designed for implementing an integrated and effective enterprise GIS system.
ArcSDE for coverages, ESRI’s native technology, is utilized in MIC for integrating data between GIS and AutoCAD formats. With this technology it is not only possible to seamlessly integrate data formats but also to leverage its inherent improved network performance. AutoCAD clients can directly access spatial data stored in ArcSDE. The above capability has vastly improved the productivity and functioning of the GIS system in terms of faster application responses and by taking away the tied up time and resources by way of additional task of data conversion from GIS personnel.
The sewer database is organized by categorizing feature data into three categories (a) Foul Sewer (b) Surface Sewer and (c) Treated Sewers. Features within each category are independently registered with ArcSDE. Another aspect of ArcSDE that is conveniently exploited is its capability to recognize the feature once registered, irrespective of any changes made to it, until it is explicitly unregistered.
Categorization of sewer features has definite advantages but it is not without its own drawback. A disadvantage of this categorization is the repetition of the same features in more that one category, resulting in data redundancy at the database level. Pumping stations, for example, are common to all the three categories. However, given that there are advantages to feature categorization data redundancy is left to be managed by the customized application developed for MIC. The application tackles the issue by leaving a tag to each feature. Data duplication at the database level is thus avoided since there exists, as far as the database is concerned, just one feature.
One of the prerequisites to facilitate infrastructure planning and management is the access to data from different sources. And, with ArcSDE it is possible to access the following data sources, identified as important to MIC infrastructure planners.
DSS Application
The decision support application developed by QP for MIC is aimed at assisting managers and senior staff in their planning and infrastructure development. Significance of the application cannot be underestimated, particularly, in the face of rapid urbanization MIC is preparing for within the next 5 years. Besides planning, it also permits monitoring the sewer system by providing access to images from CCTV, data manipulation and querying, and overlaying of satellite and aerial photographs together with GIS data for a better appreciation of the spatial layout of a region.
Sewer Infrastructure Planning
The application maintains two logical layers (1) Planning and (2) Existing. Planning layer maintains information of all features planned for but not existing. And, the existing layer holds all that is existing physically. Features already existing are moved by the application to the existing layer. Logical separation between features into layers is one way of managing the data effectively.
For planning a sewer infrastructure the primary prerequisites are the planned layout and the expected population for the region. MIC’s expansion plans are based on a Master Plan envisaged for the next 25 years. Infrastructure planning for the sewer system is based on this development blue print. The DSS application allows the blue print to be viewed in the system along with other data like contour and existing facilities both under and above the ground. Armed with this wealth of information the planner is able to plan the infrastructure starting with the pumping stations, then the sewer lines and the manholes. Assistance of aerial photographs can be sought in conjunction with elevation models by the planner in visualizing the topography of the area while locating pumping stations. Knowledge of existing facilities, crucial at the design stage and accessible from the application, helps to select the appropriate design especially while designing underground sewer facilities like sewer lines, distribution chambers, etc.
Management of MIC’s sewer system has been made a lot easier by the GIS system. It is now possible to keep track of maintenance schedules and resources, prepare detailed asset inventory, carry out inspections, create service requests and reports, etc.
Data Sharing
GIS system has opened the portals to a wide range of data consumers within Qatar Petroleum and amongst similar local governments. It is now possible to share both data and information previously not possible for the common good of all. Development plans, once formally approved, can now be published and shared across various departments who may need to look at it for their own planning purposes. A case in point is the Telecommunications Department who may need to incorporate in their plans the planned expansion in MIC to be able to extend their basic services the new areas.
Conclusion
The GIS assisted sewer management system set up by ITD for MIC has an integrated and centralized spatial database that is registered with ArcSDE for coverage server for access by client applications over a LAN/WAN link. Decision support application developed by ITD has facilitated planners, with very little training in GIS, to automate their current tasks and to easily manipulate, query, and integrate data from different sources, including satellite and aerial photographs, and to prepare and print maps. The application maintains database security by restricting access only to authorized personnel.
The application has not only made easy the planning of sewer infrastructure systems but also for keeping track of maintenance schedules and resources, prepare detailed asset inventory, carry out inspections, create service requests and reports, etc.
To the community the single most benefit from the implementation of GIS in MIC has been the ability to share data across similar local governments under Qatar Petroleum.
As part of the pilot project ITD has modified the existing work flow procedures and developed a set of applications towards a completely GIS assisted sewer system. The applications are aimed at facilitating the users to automate their routine tasks and to relieve them from the manual and time consuming data entry and QA/QC checks with very little training. For planners, the decision support application in addition to providing access to all available data in one place they can as well easily manipulate, query and integrate data from different sources, including satellite and aerial photographs, and to prepare and print maps.
Spatial Data Infrastructure
Qatar is one of the countries that has a well established spatial data infrastructure (SDI). Under the leadership of H.H. The Emir of Qatar a premier institution called the Center for GIS (CGIS) was set up in the 1990s with the mandate to establish standards and to coordinate and assist various agencies in their GIS activities in the country. Within few years of its functioning CGIS became renowned for its activities and rose to the prestigious position of Center for Excellence in GIS within the Gulf region. GIS activities in the country are coordinated by a National Committee through sub-committees hierarchical in its representation from all major government agencies in the country. Qatar Petroleum (QP), known formerly as Qatar General Petroleum Corporation (QGPC), is a fully government owned company and is represented in the National Committee by its IT Department.
SDI has an excellent system for sharing data amongst the participating agencies. Each agency can publish their data for sharing as long as it conforms to the National standards as defined in the SDI documentation. Since the data that is shared conforms to SDI specifications national databases can be easily searched based on the published metadata. As per national standards ESRI is identified as the GIS software vendor and Oracle as the RDBMS for storing any GIS related data. As agreed by the National Committee the GIS data for publishing should be either as coverage or shapefiles, both are propriety formats of ESRI.
Qatar Petroleum follows the same standards set by the National Committee in general for both spatial and non-spatial data. Due to its diverse activities in different sectors involving vastly different functionalities (like municipality, telecom, health, transport, oil and gas, etc.) QP has, and is, building its own spatial data infrastructure, similar to the national effort, in those areas where none exists with CGIS / SDI.
The sewer system in Mesaieed is slightly different from the one as implemented in the national context. Many of the manual procedures followed by the traditional GIS system as mentioned in the National Committee were modified with enhanced features suited for a completely different and automated GIS system. Consequently, changes that were deemed necessary were made to the data structure, format, storage, and work-flow procedures. QP has, accordingly, defined its own spatial infrastructure for the sewer system in MIC. It is based on the existing one developed by the National Committee but modified to reflect the changes made to its basic structure and includes detailed description of databases, work-flow, data manipulation, data conversion, etc. Metadata for the spatial databases have been developed for data mining.
GIS Databases
Qatar Petroleum has a well-established and efficient network system managed by the IT Department. Leveraging the existing infrastructure, databases are implemented in a centralized computing environment with remote access over LAN/WAN. However, GIS applications require a lot of bandwidth and could easily choke the network with its extreme demand unless the applications are carefully tuned. Detailed studies were carried out to quantify the demand for bandwidth by the GIS system for MIC and several remedial measures adopted to deliver acceptable and consistent system performance. Spatial Database Engine (SDE) is found to provide enhanced system performance with bandwidth requirements as little as 1/5th of that without SDE. For serving data across the network QP has decided to exploit ESRI’s native SDE technology.
Spatial Data Management Strategy
Strategies for data management were evaluated based on its ability for ease of data manipulation (edit, add or delete) provides adequate security, fast retrieval, and integration with other data, especially AutoCAD. In a corporate environment as diverse as QP any new system should strive to integrate and not replace an existing system. And, the strategy is designed for implementing an integrated and effective enterprise GIS system.
ArcSDE for coverages, ESRI’s native technology, is utilized in MIC for integrating data between GIS and AutoCAD formats. With this technology it is not only possible to seamlessly integrate data formats but also to leverage its inherent improved network performance. AutoCAD clients can directly access spatial data stored in ArcSDE. The above capability has vastly improved the productivity and functioning of the GIS system in terms of faster application responses and by taking away the tied up time and resources by way of additional task of data conversion from GIS personnel.
The sewer database is organized by categorizing feature data into three categories (a) Foul Sewer (b) Surface Sewer and (c) Treated Sewers. Features within each category are independently registered with ArcSDE. Another aspect of ArcSDE that is conveniently exploited is its capability to recognize the feature once registered, irrespective of any changes made to it, until it is explicitly unregistered.
Categorization of sewer features has definite advantages but it is not without its own drawback. A disadvantage of this categorization is the repetition of the same features in more that one category, resulting in data redundancy at the database level. Pumping stations, for example, are common to all the three categories. However, given that there are advantages to feature categorization data redundancy is left to be managed by the customized application developed for MIC. The application tackles the issue by leaving a tag to each feature. Data duplication at the database level is thus avoided since there exists, as far as the database is concerned, just one feature.
One of the prerequisites to facilitate infrastructure planning and management is the access to data from different sources. And, with ArcSDE it is possible to access the following data sources, identified as important to MIC infrastructure planners.
- the National GIS database
- AutoCAD drawing files
- MIC’s own GIS database.
DSS Application
The decision support application developed by QP for MIC is aimed at assisting managers and senior staff in their planning and infrastructure development. Significance of the application cannot be underestimated, particularly, in the face of rapid urbanization MIC is preparing for within the next 5 years. Besides planning, it also permits monitoring the sewer system by providing access to images from CCTV, data manipulation and querying, and overlaying of satellite and aerial photographs together with GIS data for a better appreciation of the spatial layout of a region.
Sewer Infrastructure Planning
The application maintains two logical layers (1) Planning and (2) Existing. Planning layer maintains information of all features planned for but not existing. And, the existing layer holds all that is existing physically. Features already existing are moved by the application to the existing layer. Logical separation between features into layers is one way of managing the data effectively.
For planning a sewer infrastructure the primary prerequisites are the planned layout and the expected population for the region. MIC’s expansion plans are based on a Master Plan envisaged for the next 25 years. Infrastructure planning for the sewer system is based on this development blue print. The DSS application allows the blue print to be viewed in the system along with other data like contour and existing facilities both under and above the ground. Armed with this wealth of information the planner is able to plan the infrastructure starting with the pumping stations, then the sewer lines and the manholes. Assistance of aerial photographs can be sought in conjunction with elevation models by the planner in visualizing the topography of the area while locating pumping stations. Knowledge of existing facilities, crucial at the design stage and accessible from the application, helps to select the appropriate design especially while designing underground sewer facilities like sewer lines, distribution chambers, etc.
Management of MIC’s sewer system has been made a lot easier by the GIS system. It is now possible to keep track of maintenance schedules and resources, prepare detailed asset inventory, carry out inspections, create service requests and reports, etc.
Data Sharing
GIS system has opened the portals to a wide range of data consumers within Qatar Petroleum and amongst similar local governments. It is now possible to share both data and information previously not possible for the common good of all. Development plans, once formally approved, can now be published and shared across various departments who may need to look at it for their own planning purposes. A case in point is the Telecommunications Department who may need to incorporate in their plans the planned expansion in MIC to be able to extend their basic services the new areas.
Conclusion
The GIS assisted sewer management system set up by ITD for MIC has an integrated and centralized spatial database that is registered with ArcSDE for coverage server for access by client applications over a LAN/WAN link. Decision support application developed by ITD has facilitated planners, with very little training in GIS, to automate their current tasks and to easily manipulate, query, and integrate data from different sources, including satellite and aerial photographs, and to prepare and print maps. The application maintains database security by restricting access only to authorized personnel.
The application has not only made easy the planning of sewer infrastructure systems but also for keeping track of maintenance schedules and resources, prepare detailed asset inventory, carry out inspections, create service requests and reports, etc.
To the community the single most benefit from the implementation of GIS in MIC has been the ability to share data across similar local governments under Qatar Petroleum.