Authentic intelligence: Automated decision-making through GTSM

Posted December 2005

By John (Woody) Wodraska and Jack Hampson

Standard water industry tools—such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and modeling programs—collect and store data that are currently unrelated to time and space. As reported in Authentic intelligence: Automated decision-making through GTSM (AWWA Journal, November 2005), a new tool called geospatial time-series management can help water managers consider anything that moves or changes through time, such as rainfall, reservoir levels, treatment flows, and natural stream flow. GTSM transforms data into a predictive decision-making tool by translating the information into the correct units and format to operate within a single geographic information system-driven resource. This delivers time-varying, location-specific data instantaneously to all staff, resulting in improved decision-making.

With GTSM, water managers can help offset the loss of institutional knowledge supplied by now-retiring experienced employees, thereby maximizing technology investments. The tool has applications in water resource and watershed management, contaminant tracing, treatment system optimization, modeling calibration, and many other aspects of the drinking water industry.

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