Information Management for County Infrastructure

In the mid-1980's the Johnson County Board of Commissioners initiated the Automated Information Mapping System (AIMS). AIMS was developed to enable the county to meet the growing mapping and documentation demands of the Kansas State Legislature. In addition to meeting the requirements of the legislature the county realized the overall benefit of having accurate and current maps available to the cities and citizens of the county and AIMS has been growing ever since.

One of the latest endeavors of AIMS was to compile new planimetric data. As a part of the new planimetric data, contours were developed for the entire county. This elevation information could then be used to support stormwater studies. These stormwater studies are being completed on a watershed by watershed basis and submitted to the county in a form that will supplement their enterprise GIS system. Upon completion of a watershed, methodologies were analyzed and passed on to the next study so as to refine the process and run each one as efficiently as possible.

Burns & McDonnell is tasked with completing the third stormwater study, for the Mill Creek Watershed. The study includes a hydrologic analysis utilizing the HEC1 modeling software and a hydraulic analysis utilizing the HEC-RAS modeling software. The study will analyze the 100-year flood plain and determine where changes need to be made to the current FEMA boundaries. In addition to re-mapping the floodplain the county is using the project as an engine to supplement their enterprise GIS system.

Project Philosophy
The underlying philosophy of this study is information management. The county realized the importance of information management and is using projects such as this watershed study to build and supplement their enterprise information management system. In order to make each project a building block in their information management system the county sets up standards and requirements for the project deliverables. The data requirements that the county sets allow them to take the deliverable materials from any project and integrate them directly in with their current information. In this way the county can keep their information current without having to go out and do an inventory of their system. They always have a current baseline and cut out on the need to go back to square one whenever they have a new project. A little bit of initial effort on the county.s part to set up these type of standards and requirements will make the maintenance and operation of their enterprise information system much more efficient and cost effective.

In addition to the information aspect of the project, public involvement and input is given a high priority due to the impacts of flood plain re-mapping. A number of public meetings were held to inform the public of what was being done and alert them to the presence of survey crews that would be collecting field information. In addition to the meetings, a project website was developed. The website is updated on a weekly basis and provides the public a current information source about the project.

Project Phases
The stormwater study can be broken down into five major phases or steps. The initial steps deal with setting up a foundation on which the rest of project will operate and the last step is the delivery of the flood plain analysis for the watershed.

The first phase of the project is to come up with a database design that will house all the data and serve as the central file cabinet for the whole project. The design of the database is partly set by the county's data standards and the need to make sure that the information could be used efficiently for this study as well as any future studies or projects.
The second phase of the project is the collection of all the required data for the stormwater study. This phase included attaining the county's current planimetric data as well as the collection of new field data.
The third phase deals with supporting and developing data for hydrologic stream model.
The fourth phase deals with supporting and developing data for hydraulic stream model.
The final phase is the culmination of all the modeling into new flood plain delineations for the watershed.