WaterScope: an innovative water quality information management system

SA Water is a State owned organisation that owns and manages South Australia's water supplies, providing reliable drinking water to nearly 1.4 million South Australians. A major issue affecting SA Water's ability to manage water quality effectively has been the difficulty accessing water quality information which has been stored in separate, generally inaccessible databases with poor reporting and decision support capability. To improve SA Water's ability to make timely and effective decisions regarding water quality, an integrated business system has been developed which provides water managers with direct access to comprehensive water quality information. The system includes improved field data collection units which incorporate a barcode system; sample point images and workflow support tools; an integrated water quality data warehouse with automated standard and ad hoc reporting capabilities; a geographical information system containing comprehensive coverages of natural resources and system infrastructure information; and water incident exception reporting and incident management support through a corporate incident management system. Major benefits of the system will include improved management of public health risk through quicker and more accurate reporting of incidents; improved customer confidence in SA Water; improved knowledge capture and visibility of water quality information; increased efficiency of capital utilisation and better understanding of system performance through spatial representation of data and trending of results. WaterScope can also be used and shared by data partners and regulators, making optimal use of the State's limited water quality data sets. It can also be made available commercially to other water management organisations. Future challenges include the integration of wastewater and recycled water data, linking of continuous (on-line) water quality data and links to water demand management systems.