MalaysiaGIS.com

Underground leakages of water pipes cause unnecessary hassles and lead to costly repairs. The Public Works Department (Jabatan Kerja Raya or JKR) intends to put a stop to these through innovative use of information technology (IT).

Specifically, the department is turning to geographical information system (GIS), starting with a pilot project in Labuan. The GIS implementation is designed to provide relevant data and information to help improve the operational efficiency and manageability of the water supply system for statistical and future planning.

According to JKR's waterworks division senior assistant director Lee Chan Lim, the GIS system will serve as a model for water supply in the country, and a benchmark for State water authorities.

He said upon completion of the project by end of next year, the GIS software would be offered to all 13 water supply authoritites nationwide, excluding the privatised water supply companies, for use in their respective States.

"We will propose to link up all the water supply authorities in each State, which comes under the jurisdiction of the respective State water department, to our headquarters in Kuala Lumpur," he told Computimes in Kuala Lumpur last week. Lee said the GIS software covers all aspects of water supply - from the database of all the water assets to simulation of the supply system, operations and maintenance works, development works, a consumer database and the billing system.

Eventually, the system is aimed at enabling all State water supply authorities to a common system, thus paving the way for sharing of information to avoid duplication of work and non-standardisation.

The pilot GIS project was started in 1997 with the first phase implementation which involved the implementation of a local area network (LAN) and deployment of microcomputer systems with data capture capabilities.

Lee said phase two, which was completed last month, involved the customisation of the GIS software for elements such as filing system, print out range and leakage record registration.

It also involved integration with a management information system (MIS), a SCADA system, AquaNet hydraulic software and a water billing system for Labuan.

The third and final phase of the project is on-going, and it involves further enhancements and customisation of the GIS software, to incorporate the latest technology available in the market.

To date, a sum of RM2.6 million has been invested in software and hardware for the pilot project which covers about 35 kilometers of pipes and 8,000 point utilities.

Lee said the division will be submitting a proposal to the Works Ministry for an allocation of RM900,000 under the Eighth Malaysia Plan to carry out phase three, which is expected to run throughout next year.

The pilot project is undertaken using ESRI's ArcInfo and ArcView software running on a Dell server equipped with 550 megahertz central processing unit, 256 megabytes of memory and nine gigabytes of hard disk storage.