GIS DATA CONVERSION PROCESS FOR WATER AND SEWER INFRASTRUCTURE WITH APPLICATIONS FOR LINKING LEGACY DATA

CH2M HILL, Inc. has developed an advanced ArcGIS application for the Philadelphia Water Department which links newly acquired GIS data to legacy valve, inlet, and hydrant data. The application includes a Legacy Data Conversion Toolset, a Legacy GIS Linking Toolset, and a Legacy GIS Matching Geodatabase. Legacy Data Conversion Toolset contains functions to automatically map each legacy record based on an advanced geocoding and migration algorithm. Legacy–GIS Linking Toolset automatically determines possible matches between legacy data and nearby GIS data based on complex matching rules. It also contains manual checking tools for correcting multiple matches and non-matched data records. By using the ArcGIS application, we were able to map 88 to 92 percent of legacy data records and match 74 to 86 percent of them to GIS in a very short time, thus significantly reducing the manual effort required to link the databases and increase the confidence in the matching results.