Leveraging GIS for Effective Groundwater Monitoring in a

Cost Constrained Environment

Joshua Cimera1; John Mansfield1; Dale Prewett1; Peter King1; Carl Walters2

Goulburn Murray Water1; Goulburn Broken CMA2

Partnership Acknowledgment

This project is funded as part of the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority Regional Catchment Strategy in the Shepparton

Irrigation Region and is provided with support and funding from the Australian Government and Victorian Government. This project is

delivered primarily through partnerships between the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Goulburn-Murray Water, the

Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority and other bodies.

• Background

• Previous Approach

• New Approach

• Indicative Cost Savings

• Role of GIS

• Future Work

Presentation Outline

• Groundwater Monitoring Program jointly funded– Goulburn Broken CMA (50%)– Goulburn Murray Water (50%)

• Funding constraints have required the program to be reviewed

Background

Previous Approach

Identified Problems: - the purpose for which the data was collected was not clear;- a lot of data was being collected for the “common good” without contribution from other beneficiaries;- due to the number of bores, maintenance was being neglected.

New Approach• Identified that there were four purposes for which

data was required• Identified it was feasible to have only one

program with four sub-programs aligned with each purpose.

• The four purposes/subprograms:– Environmental– Public Pump Operation– Adaptive Management– Watertable Mapping

Why are we even monitoring groundwater?

9

Public Pump Operation

Role of GIS

• Desktop Assessment

• Field Verification

• Mobile Mapping

Desktop Bore Assessment• GIS used to collate existing information

and assign to each monitoring bore– Depth, screen intervals, etc– Monitoring history – reliable data source?

• Ability to interrogate bore info with other datasets– Roads– Public or private land– GMW assets (ie Salinity Control Pumps)– Environmental Assets

Field Verification• ArcGIS for Windows Mobile deployed on

a GPS enabled Motion Tablet• Drop down menus for standardised

responses• Allowance for some general comments

that aren’t covered by drop down answers• Bore locations able to be updated in the

field by operator• Enables disconnected data editing

Bore Assessment

Mobile Mapping

Update coordinates

Menu

Drop Down Menus

Drop Down Menus

Date Entry

Date Entry

Waterlevel Entry

Waterlevel Entry

Data Sync to Corporate Spatial Database

Data Sync to Corporate Spatial Database

Deployed

Tablets

3G Network

Corporate

Spatial Database

Public Pump

Operation

Watertable

Maps

Indicative Cost Savings

Saving of $6,000 per month

Next Steps

• Finalise the monitoring program based on field assessments

• Fully integrate the monitoring program with GMW’s asset management system, Maximo

• Add track feature to record the ‘way-in’ to difficult to find bores

• Automate some of the manual transfer of data between GMW corporate systems

• Upgrading of key monitoring bores

Questions??

Before

After