Water and wastewater assets are vital resources for every single community in the world
The provision of clean water, effective sanitation services, sustainable wastewater management, and efficient sewage treatment are vital for the safety and well-being of residents.
Aging, underfunded, and under-maintained water and wastewater assets are a widespread problem. In the U.S., an average of 14 to 18 percent of treated water is lost daily due to leaks in pipes, with some water networks reporting a loss rate of over 60 percent.
Utility organizations have a significant amount of pressure placed on them to keep their infrastructure running and up-to-date on a tight budget. However, recently, an increase in funding is being allocated to managing, maintaining, and revitalizing water and wastewater assets in the U.S. It has never been a better time for utility organizations to start a digital transformation and adopt—as well as expand—technologies to help their hard-working crews manage water and wastewater assets and extend their lifecycle.
The men and women in the water and wastewater industry are, without a doubt, heroes in their own right. They work day in and day out to ensure that the assets they are charged with stewarding provide safe and efficient services to their communities. Here are just a few examples of innovative ways that communities are leveraging Trimble's GIS asset management solution, Trimble Unity Maintain, Esri and partner solutions.
Modernizing water infrastructure in Michigan
Sustainable and efficient infrastructure has the potential to connect communities, promote health, foster equity, and enrich quality of life on an individual level. A renewed focus on community resilience in the U.S. has led to federal funding for infrastructure program development. Here’s how two cities in Michigan are using Cityworks, now re-branded as Trimble Unity Maintain and ArcGIS to keep their communities healthy and safe by streamlining the inventorying and replacement of lead piping. Â
Using Trimble and E.H. Wachs to maximize workflows
Water utility crews are responsible for a variety of specialized work activities, from valve maintenance and inspections to hydrant repair and flushing. To manage these workflows, they often juggle siloed technology solutions. The City of Westminster, Colorado, is using Trimble's GIS asset management solution, Trimble GNSS receivers, ArcGIS, and E.H. Wachs to maximize their water infrastructure workflows.
Evansville Water & Sewer Utility: 4 tactics for managing & organizing vertical assets
The Evansville Water and Sewer Utility (EWSU) draws water from the nearby Ohio River to supply water and sewer services to 65,000 customers in the metropolitan area. They needed a way to schedule and track preventative maintenance for their water and wastewater treatment plants. Here’s how they are using Trimble's GIS asset management solution, ArcGIS, and POWER Engineers to help organize their vertical asset data and streamline their plant maintenance workflows.
Sniffing out water leaks with Trimble's GIS asset management and one extraordinary dog
Central Arkansas Water (CAW) is a regional drinking water utility that serves around half a million consumers in 18 communities. They are using Cityworks, now re-branded as Trimble Unity Maintain, ArcGIS and satellite detection in a unique way. In November 2019, CAW became North America’s first utility organization to implement a K9 leak detection program. Vessel, a black lab mix rescue dog, helps detect leaks in water infrastructure, and her work is tracked using Trimble's GIS asset management solution and ArcGIS.
Opelika Utilities: creating and managing sustainable water metering infrastructure
Opelika Utilities, Alabama, serves a population of 13,000 residents and manages 280 miles of pipe, as well as two water treatment facilities. With the help of POWER Engineers, they are currently in the process of updating their water meter infrastructure by implementing Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) and Trimble's GIS asset management solution. This is being done through the installation of smart meters that automatically provide hourly meter readings.
5 ways Tualatin Valley Water District streamlined their water quality sampling
The Tualatin Valley Water District (TVWD) is tasked with collecting water quality samples at approximately 170 different locations. Before implementing Cityworks now re-branded as Trimble Unity Maintain, water quality collections, lab submissions, and chain of custody workflows were inefficient and overly complicated. Data was manually entered on individual spreadsheets, and the sample submission process required all the individual sample data to be merged into one spreadsheet and sent off to the lab. TVWD has radically simplified this water sampling process by implementing Trimble's GIS asset management solution and ArcGIS to collect and submit their water quality data. Here are 5 tools that TVWD uses to streamline their workflows.
