Drinking Water Quality | Locus Technologies

Tips for choosing a GIS application for your environmental database

You can turbocharge your water data management by including a geographical information system (GIS) in your toolkit! Your data analysis efficiency also gets a huge boost if your data management system includes a GIS system “out of the box” because you won’t have to manually transfer data to your GIS. All your data is seamlessly available in both systems.

Not all GIS packages are created equal, though. Here are some tips to consider when looking at mapping applications for your environmental data:

1) Confirm that integration is built-in and thorough

Mapping is easy when properly integrated with your environmental database. You should not need extra filters or add-on programs to visualize your data. Look for built-in availability of features, such as “click to map”, that take the guesswork and frustration out of mapping for meaningful results.

Good integration means mapping is as easy as clicking a “show on map” button. In Locus EIM, you can run a data query and click “Show results on map” icon, change the default settings if desired, and instantly launch a detailed map with a range of query layers to review all chemicals at the locations of interest.

All the query results are presented as query layers, so you can review the results in detail. This map was created with the easy “show results on map” functionality, which anyone can use with no training.

2) Check for formatting customization options

Look for easy editing tools to change the label colors, sizes, fonts, positioning, and symbols. Some map backgrounds make the default label styles hard to read and diminish the utility of the map, or if you’re displaying a large quantity of data, you’ll almost certainly need to tweak some display options to make these labels more readable.

Default label styles are legible on this background, but they are a bit hard to read.

A few simple updates to the font color, font sizes, label offset, and background color make for much easier reading. Changes are made via easy-to-use menus and are instantly updated on the map, so you have total control to make a perfectly labeled map.

3) Look for built-in contouring for quick assessment of the extent of the spatial impact

Contours can be a great way to visually interpret the movement of contaminants in groundwater and is a powerful visualization tool. In the example below, you can clearly see the direction the plume is heading and the source of the problem. An integrated GIS with a contouring engine lets you go straight from a data query to a contour map—without export to external contouring or mapping packages. This is great for quick assessments for your project team.

Contour maps make it easy to visualize the source and extent of the plumes. They can be easily created with environmental database management systems that include basic contouring functionality.

4) Look for something easy to use that doesn’t require staff with specialized mapping knowledge

Many companies use sophisticated and expensive mapping software for their needs. But the people running those systems are highly trained and often don’t have easy access to your environmental data. For routine data review and analysis, simple is better. Save the expensive, stand-alone GIS for wall-sized maps and complex regulatory reports.

Here is a simple map (which is saved, so anyone can run it) showing today’s chlorine data in a water distribution system. You don’t have to wait for the GIS department to create a map when you use a GIS that’s integrated with your environmental database system. When data are updated daily from field readings, these maps can be incredibly helpful for operational personnel.

Screenshot of Locus GIS location clustering functionality

See your data in new ways with Locus GIS for environmental management.
Locus offers integrated GIS/environmental data management solutions for organizations in many industries.
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Taking the next steps

After viewing some of the many visualization possibilities in this blog, the next step is make some maps happen!

Make sure your environmental data system has integrated mapping options.
Make sure your sampling/evaluation/monitoring locations have a consistent set of coordinates. If you have a mixed bag of coordinate systems, you will need to standardize. Otherwise, your maps will not be meaningful. Here are some options to try, as well as some good resource sites:
- https://epsg.io/ (transformations)
- http://www.earthpoint.us/Convert.aspx (transformations)
Start with a few easy maps—and build from there.

Happy mapping!

Improving Arsenic detection and keeping it out of drinking water

Arsenic, a naturally occurring element, is one of the many drinking water contaminants actively monitored by drinking water systems because it can result in adverse health conditions, including an increased risk for a range of cancers. U.S. EPA and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) are joining forces to launch the Arsenic Sensor Prize Competition for the development of new technology to detect arsenic in water. If you are interested in participating you can read more here:

https://blog.epa.gov/blog/2016/09/were-sensing-a-change-in-water-monitoring-introducing-the-arsenic-sensor-prize-competition/

The use of arsenic as a poison is widely documented. As a result, many people are alarmed when they hear that their drinking water, either from a public or private water system, may contain any amount of arsenic. Exposure to arsenic in drinking water at the level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently deems as safe in the United States (10 parts per billion) still may induce adverse health outcomes. The U.S. EPA recently lowered the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for arsenic to 10 µ/L in public water supplies—a regulated level that is considered “safe” for a lifetime of exposure—yet concentrations of 100 µ/L and higher are commonly found in private, unregulated well water in regions where arsenic is geologically abundant, including upper New England (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine), Florida, and large parts of the Upper Midwest, the Southwest, and the Rocky Mountains.

Arsenic is a natural component of the earth’s crust and is widely distributed throughout the environment in the air, water and land. It is highly toxic in its inorganic form.

Arsenic in drinking water.

Measuring and testing for arsenic require expensive instruments and lab work, as well as time. However, with new and emerging technologies, a more efficient arsenic monitoring technology could help to improve the monitoring system, reduce costs, and better protect human health and the environment. Typically, samples are sent to a laboratory for analysis, with results available days to weeks later. New technology could accelerate this process by allowing for immediate detection of arsenic in water. This could reduce monitoring costs and help water utilities more effectively control treatment to remove arsenic from the drinking water supply.
The Arsenic Sensor Prize Competition aims to improve the existing process with upcoming and emerging technology. The competition is not exclusively restricted to sensor developers but seeks applicants from all fields, including information technology. For example, besides sensor technologies, a new data collection and transmission technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) can also accelerate water quality characterization process or better data management, visualization, and reporting via cloud-based SaaS technologies. Applicant criteria include anyone with ideas for how to rapidly, accurately, and cost-effectively measure arsenic in water.

Locus Technologies is a software company that specializes in providing a SaaS-based solution for water quality management. Arsenic is one of a key and prolific contaminants in our vast water quality databases. We have a keen interest in supporting this excellent and timely competition to help find a way to automate detection and data collection of arsenic and other contaminants in real time. To help shed some light on the importance of arsenic in drinking water, we performed a quick check on a total number of arsenic records, hits, and locations across all customers in Locus SaaS EIM (Yes multi-tenant SaaS as otherwise, this statistic would be impossible to gather). This is what we found:

Total number of analytical records: >520,000,000
Number of Arsenic Records: 248,850
Number of Arsenic hits (above action limit MCL of 10 µ/L): 112,597
Number of Arsenic locations: 19,304

If you have ideas and are interested in helping protect our nation’s drinking water, Locus encourages you to participate. We will have a special prize for the winner.

San Jose Water Company: Water quality and environmental compliance are critical business functions

Our new customer, San Jose Water Company, is deploying our Locus EIM and Locus Mobile solutions to consolidate and manage its water sampling and environmental compliance data. The keyword for SJWC is “consolidate”. San Jose Water’s challenge was to consolidate its 12+ data silos into one comprehensive solution with the capabilities to provide a tighter, more integrated system.

SJWC determined that Locus EIM and Locus Mobile provided the right solution. Francois Rodigari, the director of Water Quality and Environmental Services at San Jose Water said it best: “Water quality and environmental compliance are critical business functions at San Jose Water Company. …for the first time, the ability to consolidate and access critical information on data related to water quality and environmental compliance in a single repository based on a cloud platform. This comprehensive view of our water system will help us to comprehensively manage all data related to drinking water and environmental compliance, and as a result, bring higher efficiency to our organization.”

Thank you SJWC!

Tag Archive for: Drinking Water