Utilities & Energy
Digitizing utility service connections
The project involved the digitization of utility service connections, including water, sewer, and storm services, within the city’s ArcGIS geodatabase.
- Industry
- Utilities & Energy
- Location
- Canada
- Team
- 10 GIS specialists, 2 quality controllers, and a project manager. The work was planned in weekly phases to land inside one month. Each phase was scheduled, and the client got regular updates on progress, problems hit, and how they were solved. The team stayed in contact to clear issues as they came up. Quality control ran throughout, and the project delivered at a 100% quality standard and on time.
- Stack
- ArcGIS was used for geospatial management and mapping, while SQL was employed for querying and verifying attribute data.
About the client
A department of the municipality focusing on innovation, strategy, and intergovernmental relations.
The challenge, and what closed it
Technical challenge
The historical data came from paper records running from the 1900s to the present, with units of measurement and technical detail that varied by era. Getting every utility connection in, accurately and completely, was the hard part at this volume. The datasets were large enough that the integrity of the utility network information depended on close attention at every step.
What we did
Augmented ArcGIS geodatabase with utility service connections. Mapped connections to parcels. Added detailed attributes to the database. Transferred historical data to GIS.
Why us
Moving from analog to digital data took several technical steps: Data Preparation and Digitization: the existing ArcGIS geodatabase was extended by linking utility service connections (water, sewer, storm) to residential parcels. Scanned engineering documentation was integrated and the historical paper records were transferred into digital form, mapped to the right parcels in the geodatabase. Attribute Enrichment: the geodatabase was updated with attributes for each utility connection: pipe depth, diameter, and length, extracted from the engineering documents. Topological Validation: topological checks verified spatial relationships and connections within the utility network, and inconsistencies were corrected. Quality Assurance: data accuracy and completeness were validated through systematic checks. All topological and attribute data was verified against the project standards. The result is a digital utility network with accurate attributes and validated spatial relationships.
Results
A fully digitised utility network database for the city, topological checks included. The historical data now lives in the GIS system as a digital record for utility management and planning.
What we delivered
Augmented ArcGIS geodatabase with utility service connections
Mapped connections to parcels
Added detailed attributes to the database
Transferred historical data to GIS
Tech stack
- Survey & CAD
- ArcGIS was used for geospatial management and mapping, while SQL was employed for querying and verifying attribute data.
