Mobile GPS software speeds collection, processing of water utilities data

- edited by Gary Thayer, News Editor

Helena, MT, Dec. 28, 2004 -- (MobileVillage) -- Montana's Lewis and Clark County is using mobile technology to tackle a major civic mapping project.

The city-county's health department's environmental services division is using Thale's MobileMapper GPS-based handhelds to help build an extensive database of the county's septic systems, treatment fields and domestic water supply wells.

"Our goal is to be able to provide residents and developers with the precise location of wells and waste water treatment systems for all property parcels in the county," said Frank Preskar, environmental health specialist. "With more than 8,500 existing sites that need to be mapped, we had to be able to collect locations accurately and more efficiently than we could by measuring distances to property corners and triangulating well, septic and field locations."

This past June, at the suggestion of the county GIS manager, who had used and evaluated MobileMapper in other applications, the department investigated the suitability of the device for its mapping needs. MobileMapper simplifies the task of recording location points and entering descriptive information. Locations can be mapped with 2-3 meter real-time accuracy and sub-meter post-processed accuracy, according to Thales.

"We're just starting to collect the data and download it into our ArcMap program," said Preskar. "The data is also provided to the county's master GIS databases. To date, we've completed about 50 sites. The MobileMapper cuts time to job completion in half. Previously, everything was done in hard copy using rough sketches. We measured with tapes to property corners and triangulated the positions."

That can be enormously time-consuming, according to Preskar, particularly on 30- and 40-acre parcels. Previously all hard copies were filed according to who owned the property. As property changed hands, it became increasingly difficult to find the information.

"We've done away with all that hand-sketching," Preskar said. "Now we go to the property and simply collect the points we need and key in the descriptive data from a feature library loaded on the MobileMapper. The library is set up with five fields: monitoring wells, test holes, septic tanks, drain field and wells."

Back in the office, the MobileMapper software enables Preskar's team to upload the information as a SHP file to our computer and import it into the ArcMap desktop GIS program. (Other GIS programs can be used as well.) The ArcMap software lets the county compose maps showing all the points and descriptions collected. Pages can be then be composed for printing and publishing for each parcel.

MobileMapper costs about US $2,200 per unit. For information, see the Thales web site.

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