WaterSight - Easily Creating Zones Shapefiles


Product(s):WaterSight
Version(s):10.00.
Area:Documentation

Overview

Typically zones polygons are already presented in the water utility GIS, and this information can be easily exported to shapefile format.

However, in some cases water utilities may not have this information readily available in their GIS, or the zones defined in the GIS do not exactly matched those defined in WaterSight (please remember that in WaterSight zones should correspond to isolated areas of the system, surrounded by closed valves and where all inflows and outflows - if exist - must be measured). In these cases, it may be particularly useful to the WaterSight administrator to easily and quickly define and create these zones polygons, to be updated in the software.

Workflow to create a zone shapefile using WaterGEMS tools

Zones shapefiles can be easily created using some tools in WaterGEMS (hydraulic modeling desktop software). Main steps include:

1 - Open Hydraulic Model in WaterGEMS (make sure you know the EPS code of the hydraulic model, as this information will be required later)

2 - Create the zones polygons, using the Pump Station Layout tool. You can use the pump station layout tool to create your zones, as this tool allows you to create a polygon. Make sure you correctly identify all the zones boundaries (closed valves and inflows/outflows).

3 - After all the zones polygons are created, open the pump station flex table (Analysis >> FlexTables >> Pump Station). In the Label field, give a name to your zones.

4 - In the Flex tables dialog, in the upper left corner, click in the "Export to file" button  . In the "Save as type" make sure ESRI shapefile is defined. Give a name to the file and then Click Save.

5 - After clicking Save, a new dialog will open. Please make sure to rename the "Label" field (column label) to "Name" (Esri Shapefile Field Name), as WaterSight requires that the zone shapefile contains at least a column labelled "Name".

6 - The zone shapefile was exported, but it is now missing the prj (projection file) that also is required to upload in WaterSight. You can use free GIS software (such as QGIS for example) to create this prj file. To do this:

 7 - The new zone shapefile has now been exported to a folder in your computer. Make sure to create a zip file with all the extensions, and then go to WaterSight >> Admin >> GIS >> in the zones row, and upload the zones zip file.

See also

OpenFlows WaterSight TechNotes and FAQ's