Recent Papers in Geographic Information Systems and Virtual Imaging
Content Table
- Modeling water and nutrients fluxes in the Büyük Menderes drainage basin, Turkey
- GIS-based analysis of the fate of waste-related pathogens Cryptosporidium parvum, Giardia lamblia and Escherichia coli in a tropical canal network
- Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) as an instrument of water resource management: a case study from a GIS-based Water Safety Plan in Germany
- The use of GIS and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) to identify agricultural land management practices which cause surface water pollution in drinking water supply catchments
- Use of geographic information system in the assessment of bacteriological quality and sanitary risk factors of household drinking water sources in Ibadan, Nigeria
- The development of a time trend analysis tool for GIS and its application in the assessment of Nash Bank, South Wales
- Sewer rehabilitation planning - priority and cost planning using GIS
- A GIS-based tool for distribution system data integration and analysis
- Integrated use of GIS-based field sampling and modeling for hydrologic and water quality studies
- Implementing GIS to resolve environmental coastal problems in Varna
Modeling water and nutrients fluxes in the Büyük Menderes drainage basin, Turkey
Water Science & Technology—WST Vol 59 No 3 pp 531–541 © IWA Publishing 2009 doi:10.2166/wst.2009.013
Ö. F. Durdu and V. Cvetkovic
Water Resources Research Center, Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, 09100, Turkey E-mail: odurdu@adu.edu.tr
Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Brinellvagen 32, Stockholm, SE-100 44, Sweden E-mail: vdc@kth.se
Abstract
Büyük Menderes catchment, located in the southwestern part of Turkey, is one of the most populated river basins in Turkey with 2.5 millions inhabitants. Due to increasing activities in agriculture and industrial sectors, water resources management in the basin is one of the biggest matters for the future. During the past decade, it has been observed a basinwide shift to larger monocultural, intensively operated farm units. Therefore, there is land use conversion from native lands to agriculture. The threat of nutrients pollution, nitrogen and phosphorus, has become a preoccupation since many lands and rivers undergo a eutrophication process. The discharge of nutrients from Büyük Menderes basin to the Aegean Sea through Büyük Menderes river also needs to be reduced in order to bring the eutrophication problems under lasting control. In this paper, the PolFlow model embedded in PCraster is applied to the catchment for quantifying water and substances fluxes for the five-year period, 1999–2004. The implementation of the model in the catchment allows describing the water balance and thus nutrient transport on the landscape surface but also through the soil and aquifer's layers. Modeling process is complicated by the transfer of nutrients from diffuse and point-source emissions, managed by retention and periodic release from storages within the catchment. Modeling diffuse and point-source nutrient emissions contribution to river loads can be improved by better knowledge about spatial and temporal distribution of this retention and release in the basin.
GIS-based analysis of the fate of waste-related pathogens Cryptosporidium parvum, Giardia lamblia and Escherichia coli in a tropical canal network
Journal of Water and Health Vol 07 No 1 pp 133–143 © IWA Publishing 2009 doi:10.2166/wh.2009.010
Mamadou B. C. Diallo, Alfredo J. Anceno, Benjawan Tawatsupa, Nitin K. Tripathi, Voranuch Wangsuphachart and Oleg V. Shipin
Environmental Engineering and Management (EEM), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand Tel.: (662) 524-5632 Fax: (662) 524-5625 E-mail: oshipin@ait.ac.th
Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (RS-GIS), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand
Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, 420/6 Ratchawithi Rd, Bangkok, 10400, Thailand
Abstract
Urban canals play a major socio-economic role in many tropical countries and, particularly, Thailand. One of the overlooked functions that they perform is a significant attenuation of waste-related pathogens posing considerable health risk, as well as pollution attenuation in general. The study dealt with a comparison of three canals receiving: (i) municipal, (ii) mainly industrial and (iii) mainly agricultural wastewater, listed in order of progressively decreasing organic loading. The occurrence and fate of waterborne Cryptosporidium parvum, Giardia lamblia and Escherichia coli were monitored in the canals by both real-time PCR and conventionally for 12 months. The pathogens are etiological agents of an estimated 38% and 47% of diarrhea cases worldwide and in Thailand, respectively. The geographic information system (GIS) was used to evaluate and map point and, particularly, non-point pollution sources which allowed differentiating the canal sections in terms of predominant pathogen sources. The flowthrough canals, which can be viewed as waste stabilization ponds, were found to be efficiently removing the pathogens at the following generalized specific rates: 0.3 (C. parvum), 1.2 (G. lamblia), 1.8 (E. coli) log10/km.d in the dry season. The rates decreased in the rainy season for E. coli and G. lamblia, but increased for C. parvum which indicated different removal mechanisms. Data suggest that E. coli and G. lamblia were mainly removed through sedimentation and sunlight (UV) irradiation, while the likely mechanism for C. parvum was predation. Overall, the specific pathogen removal rates positively correlated with the canal organic loading rates in the rainy season. As an important result, an estimate of the municipal pollution mitigation by over 2,280 km canals in the Greater Bangkok suggests that concomitant to the pathogens at least 36–95 tons of BOD5 is being removed daily, thereby saving the receiving Chao Phraya River and Bight of Bangkok, by far exceeding current, from major eutrophication problems.
Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) as an instrument of water resource management: a case study from a GIS-based Water Safety Plan in Germany
Water Science & Technology—WST Vol 60 No 7 pp 1691–1699 © IWA Publishing 2009 doi:10.2166/wst.2009.501
I. Wienand, U. Nolting and T. Kistemann
Institute for Hygiene and Public Health, University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, 53105 Bonn, Germany E-mail: ina.wienand@ukb.uni-bonn.de
Stadtwerke Niederkassel, Spicher Str. 32-34, 53859x Niederkassel, Germany E-mail: boxman@ukb.uni-bonn.de
Abstract
Following international developments and the new WHO Drinking Water Guidelines (WHO 2004) a process-orientated concept for risk, monitoring and incident management has been developed and implemented in this study. The concept will be reviewed with special consideration for resource protection (first barrier of the multi-barrier system) and in turn, for the Water Safety Plan (WSP) which adequately considers—beyond the current framework of legal requirements—possible new hygienic-microbiologically relevant risks (especially emerging pathogens) for the drinking water supply. The development of a WSP within the framework of risk, monitoring and incident management includes the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). In the present study, GIS was used for visualization and spatial analysis in decisive steps in the WSP. The detailed process of GIS-supported implementation included the identification of local participants and their tasks and interactions as an essential part of risk management. A detailed ecological investigation of drinking water conditions in the catchment area was conducted in addition to hazard identification, risk assessment and the monitoring of control measures. The main task of our study was to find out in which steps of the WSP the implementation of GIS could be integrated as a useful, and perhaps even an essential tool.
The use of GIS and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) to identify agricultural land management practices which cause surface water pollution in drinking water supply catchments
Water Science & Technology—WST Vol 58 No 9 pp 1797–1802 © IWA Publishing 2008 doi:10.2166/wst.2008.569
Richard Grayson, Paul Kay and Miles Foulger
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK E-mail: r.grayson@leeds.ac.uk; p.kay@leeds.ac.uk
Yorkshire Water Services Ltd, Western House, Western Way, Bradford, BD6 2LZ, UK
Abstract
Diffuse pollution poses a threat to water quality and results in the need for treatment for potable water supplies which can prove costly. Within the Yorkshire region, UK, nitrates, pesticides and water colour present particular treatment problems. Catchment management techniques offer an alternative to ‘end of pipe’ solutions and allow resources to be targeted to the most polluting areas. This project has attempted to identify such areas using GIS based modelling approaches in catchments where water quality data were available. As no model exists to predict water colour a model was created using an MCE method which is capable of predicting colour concentrations at the catchment scale. CatchIS was used to predict pesticide and nitrate N concentrations and was found to be generally capable of reliably predicting nitrate N loads at the catchment scale. The pesticides results did not match the historic data possibly due to problems with the historic pesticide data and temporal and spatially variability in pesticide usage. The use of these models can be extended to predict water quality problems in catchments where water quality data are unavailable and highlight areas of concern.
Use of geographic information system in the assessment of bacteriological quality and sanitary risk factors of household drinking water sources in Ibadan, Nigeria
Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology—AQUA Vol 57 No 8 pp 607–614 © IWA Publishing 2008 doi:10.2166/aqua.2008.051
E. O. Oloruntoba
Department of Epidemiology, Medical Statistics and Environmental Health, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria Tel.: +234-802-894-6358 E-mail: li_zzyy@yahoo.com
Abstract
This study used a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS), bacteriological analysis and sanitary inspections to assess the risk of contamination of drinking water sources in 62 randomly selected households in Ibadan, Nigeria. Findings revealed that the majority of the households used groundwater sources of poor quality. The raw bacteriological data was classified into five water quality Grades A to E (from no risk to very high risk). Majority (82.3%) of the households were grouped as D and E, implying that a large proportion of the households was exposed to high bacterial load in their water supplies thus exposing these households to the risk of water-borne diseases. Results of sanitary inspection also showed that most (62.9%) households have intermediate/high risks associated with physical defects in the water supply facilities which could lead to quality deterioration. A weak positive correlation (Spearman's r=0.379, p=0.02) was observed between the E. coli and sanitary risk score grades. The study proposed urgent remedial action by all stakeholders and an extension of the study to cover the rural and urban local government areas in Ibadan.
The development of a time trend analysis tool for GIS and its application in the assessment of Nash Bank, South Wales
Journal of Hydroinformatics Vol 9 No 3 pp 193–201 © IWA Publishing 2007 doi:10.2166/hydro.2007.022
Jonathan Kemp and Alan Brampton
HR Wallingford Ltd., Howbery Park, Wallingford, OX10 8BA, UK Tel.: +44 1491 835381Fax: +44 1491 832233j.kemp@hrwallingford.couk
Abstract
Incorporating a temporal function (i.e. to analyse data over time) into the spatial environment of GIS has been developed and applied in the assessment of the evolution of Nash Bank, South Wales. A stringent programme of monitoring, including annual bathymetric surveys of the bank, is carried out as part of the requirements of aggregate dredging and provides suitable data to analyse changes in bank levels over time. Traditionally GIS has been used to assess the evolution of such coastal landforms by creating a digital terrain model (DTM) for each of the bathymetric datasets and then performing a simple calculation whereby one DTM is subtracted from an earlier one. However, a simple difference in levels between any two snapshots in time can be misleading when trying to evaluate long-term rates of change. The new GIS tool has been developed that calculates such rates (i.e. the time trend) by incorporating a linear regression formula. The results are then plotted out by the tool into GIS as a DTM, in which each individual data cell represents a rate of change (time trend) at that particular location, allowing a clear temporal analysis to be presented for the whole area.
Sewer rehabilitation planning - priority and cost planning using GIS
Water Practice & Technology © CSIRO 2006 | doi10.2166/wpt.2006.015
R. Burkhard1,S. González Lakehal1
1Entsorgung + Recycling Zürich, Bändlistrasse 108, CH-8010 Zürich, Switzerland
Abstract
Rehabilitation priority and cost planning are an important and integral part of urban drainage master planning in Switzerland. Although Entsorgung + Recycling Zürich (ERZ), the sewer-age utility of the city of Zürich, has considerable financial means available for the rehabilita-tion of its sewers, it has so far not established a continuous leading role in triggering rehabili-tation projects among the city’s utilities departments, which results in a suboptimal qualitative improvement of the sewer network. This was due to organisational as well as technical rea-sons. It was thus decided in late 2003 to develop a decision support tool for rehabilitation and cost planning, which visualises the most urgent rehabilitation needs. A lot of data necessary for rehabilitation and cost planning is readily available on different databases and servers, but was so far never linked to provide a semi-automatic tool that combined all the information. This paper describes the basics and the methods for the design of a rehabilitation- and cost-planning prototype.
A GIS-based tool for distribution system data integration and analysis
Journal of Hydroinformatics 7 (2006) 13-24
Martin Trépanier, Vincent Gauthier, Marie-Claude Besner and Miche`le Pre´vost
Mathematics and Industrial Engineering Department, École Polytechnique de Montréal, PO Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3A7, Canada, Tel: +1 514 340 4711 X4911, Fax: +1 514 340 4173, mtrepanier@polymtl.ca
Veolia Water – Générale des Eaux, Direction technique, 103 rue aux Arènes, BP 60045, 57003, Metz, France
Mathematics and Industrial Engineering Department, École Polytechnique de Montréal, PO Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3A7, Canada, Tel: +1 514 340 4711 X4911, Fax: +1 514 340 4173, mtrepanier@polymtl.ca
Mathematics and Industrial Engineering Department, École Polytechnique de Montréal, PO Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3A7, Canada, Tel: +1 514 340 4711 X4911, Fax: +1 514 340 4173, mtrepanier@polymtl.ca
Abstract
The causes of water quality problems in distribution systems are difficult to identify because they can be related to numerous sources. A tool has been developed to integrate and analyse water distribution system data with the help of geographical information system (GIS) technologies. This approach uses a flexible software architecture to gather data on distribution system structural elements, water quality sampling and especially distribution system events, all of which can be key to explaining water quality problems. The tool has been applied to five water utilities in North America and Europe, all with different data formats and data gathering practices. The approach was successful in explaining about 40% of positive coliform samples at the Laval (Quebec) utility. It also led to better data quality and responsiveness at the utilities.
Integrated use of GIS-based field sampling and modeling for hydrologic and water quality studies
Journal of Hydroinformatics 7 (2005) 235-250
Enrique. Vivoni and Kevin T. Richards
Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM, 87801, USA, Tel: +1 505 835 5611, Fax: +1 505 835 5634, vivoni@nmt.edu
East Bay Municipal Utility District, 375 11 Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, USA
Abstract
Enhancements to traditional catchment-scale water quality assessments can be realized by leveraging geographical information systems (GIS) for both field data collection and hydrologic and water quality (H/WQ) modeling. In this study, we describe a GIS-based data collection system for geo-referenced environmental sampling utilizing mobile, wireless and Internet technologies. Furthermore, sampled field data is combined with historical measurements within a GIS-based semi-distributed watershed model for simulating water quantity and quality in a large regional catchment. The GIS-based sampling and modeling system is intended to streamline water quality assessments as compared to current practices. We describe an application and field study in the Williams River, New South Wales, Australia designed to assess the impacts of point and non-point source pollution on water quality. Historical data were utilized for calibrating and validating the Hydrologic Simulation Program - Fortran (HSPF) with the BASINS GIS interface over the 1988-2000 period. Results from the study indicate that short-duration, spatially extensive field campaigns provide useful data for enhancing modeling studies based on historical measurements at sparse sites. In addition, the study suggests that the conjunctive use of data collection and modeling is a step towards real-time integration of field data in hydrologic and water quality modeling efforts.
Implementing GIS to resolve environmental coastal problems in Varna
Water Science & Technology Vol 46 No 8 pp 161–167 © IWA Publishing 2002
L.N. Dimov
Head of Information Technology Department, Agency of Cadastre, 17, Kiril i Metodij Str., 1202 Sofia, Bulgaria
Abstract
The city of Varna, like many other coastal cities along the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea, has a lot of problems related to the environmental protection for many years, including those with coastal zone management. Recently, the coastal slope problems due to land-slides apeared as very urgent and difficult to be solved. This paper describes a method to solve some of the problems by analysing the data collected. A data layer representing the complete hydrologic network including transport lines through slopes, lakes, streams, rivers, is a necessary component of many hydrologic and coastal applications. The coastal area of the city has significant importance - sea ports, resorts, cargo terminals. Most of them add environmental problems to the Black Sea in adjacent territories and the region as a whole. The attempt described is to solve these problems on the ground. This paper describes a process to analyse the area specific geographical data for a decision. Making a front-end application using ESRI's ArcView 3.0a/Avenue, user-friendly procedures were prepared to automate most of the functions. This application generates maps using data collected during the last two years. The data acquisition is performed according to the Bulgarian standards. Converting procedures are created and tested as well. Finally, a technology for updating data is approved.
