The Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Upgrading Water Distribution and Sewerage Systems

Upgrading water distribution systems in towns imposes the study of water distribution networks, starting from a global vision including the current situation, the management of each element of the system as well as their exploitation, development and optimization. The water distribution system consists of a number of interconnected hydraulic elements, each of them characterized by certain relations among the variables that have been chosen to describe their functioning. Currently, the GIS system has the advantage of enabling the collecting and validation of all available information, leading to the possibility of a coherent data set for the elaboration of a hydraulic model. In order to analyse the running of the system, the current practice restricts the analysis model of these elements, so that the parameters could be molded within the existing simulation systems. The paper presents various possibilities to analyse the functioning of a water distribution system.