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Spalding County Water Authority unveils in‑house GIS with nightly updates and mobile inspection tools
Summary
GIS manager Chris Reagan told the Spalding County Water Authority on March 19 that a new in‑house GIS team has delivered nightly data updates, a web map of system assets, mobile hydrant inspection workflows and a program to estimate water main ages.
Chris Reagan, GIS manager for the Spalding County Water Authority, told the authority at its March 19 meeting that the authority has established an in‑house geographic information systems (GIS) team that is providing nightly updates to asset layers and real‑time field tools for staff.
Reagan said the authority now controls its GIS layers rather than depending on outside providers and that staff can access a custom web map showing hydrants, valves and mains and linked digital records. “Now that we have our GIS department, were fully independent for our GIS services...we actually get updates nightly now,” Reagan said.
The presentation showed a primary web map the authority calls the Water Map, a live asset inventory dashboard and a mobile inspection workflow built on an Esri field app. The mobile form marks hydrants that have been inspected in real time; Reagan said the dashboard showed 77 hydrants inspected out of 3,181 total (about 6%), with one defect recorded during the current cycle. He also said the team has begun mapping recorded easements and has developed a process to estimate water main ages using hydrant installation dates, home construction years and historical aerial imagery; that process produced age estimates for more than 99% of the authoritys mains.
Board members praised the ability to see updates immediately. One board member said, “Im very impressed to be able to have all that data, basically at our fingertips and in a way that we can use it. And thats happening in real time.” The GIS manager said the department is expanding support to other county functions, including zoning updates, the new stormwater utility, public works, emergency management and a citizen engagement app that could replace the current request system.
The presentation also noted operational changes enabled by GIS: a mobile inspection workflow intended to eliminate duplicate visits and reduce data entry errors, and a dashboard for supervisors to track daily inspection totals and trends. Reagan closed by thanking General Manager Joseph Johnson and the board for establishing the GIS function.
The authority did not take any formal vote on the presentation; the GIS demonstration was received as an informational item.
