HUNTSVILLE, Ala., July 15, 2003 -- The City of Volta Redonda, Brazil, has gone operational with its new Geospatial Resource Management System, powered by Intergraph's GeoMedia® technology.
The City of Volta Redonda's Public Works Department, Servico Autonomo de Agua e Esgoto (SAAE), provides water and wastewater services to 300,000 residents and manages a network of more than 70,000 water pipes and 68,000 sewer pipes. GeoMedia PublicWorks Manager is improving access to the city's asset information, thus speeding analysis of water consumption and identification of parcels affected by routine maintenance or outages.
"With GeoMedia solutions, we can now see the entire network on the desktop and spatially analyze the data for better decision making," said Evandro Silva, SAAE's GIS manager. "We are pleased to have significantly diminished the chance of scarcity of our water supply. Coupled with our efforts to increase capacity and improve the treatment station, the new system will help our city meet the increased water consumption needs that we anticipate in the next few years."
Previously, SAAE's cadastre was completely paper based. Leakages and illegal connections were wasting 40 percent of the city's treated water. To better monitor and maintain the system, the department required a complete geographic information system (GIS) that included capabilities for data conversion, data collection using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and network validation and operation in a truly integrated enterprise environment.
By pinpointing operational problems such as leaks, breaks and open valves, GeoMedia PublicWorks Manager's functionality for network tracing and feature association has resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the amount of water being wasted. GPS is used to collect customer location information, which is uploaded into the PublicWorks Manager data model on a nightly basis. SAAE performs complex spatial and textual analysis based on the latest data collected, resulting in thorough, accurate reports. Among other uses, the analysis capability enables SAAE to:
* detect frauds in the system by analyzing big consumption changes
* quantify the consumption of water per region
* identify residents with delinquent accounts
* manage the expenses in homes with swimming pools
* calculate the sewer volumes in each point
An example of practical system usage is that the software locates residents who will lose service when a water pipe needs maintenance and automatically generates an advance mailing to inform the customers of the disrupted service. In addition, when the wastewater system experiences problems, the nearest valve can be found and closed to isolate the trouble.
City of Volta Redonda
The City of Volta Redonda in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has a population of more than 300,000 inhabitants. The city is known as the "city of steel" because of the presence of Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), one of the largest steel-making complexes in Latin America.
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions
Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions is a geospatial solutions provider for the following markets: local, state and federal government; transportation; utilities; communications; location-based services; photogrammetry; remote sensing; cartography; and military and intelligence. For more information, visit www.intergraph.com/imgs.
