Mississippi Source Water Assessment Program

The Geospatial Group assists the Mississippi Source Water Assessment Program (SWAP), a program which is controlled by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), in maintaining and updating public water supply well data along with the creation of source water protection areas for each well in the State. The Geospatial Group has developed an ArcGIS Desktop application that is used for Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) by SWAP personnel. Within the application are multiple datasets that are used to determine the protection needs of each well. Also, through the use of ArcObjects, several tools were created that perform various tasks allowing the SWAP personnel to track, add and modify data. All reporting for the system is accomplished through ArcMap using Crystal Reports.

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Mississippi Watershed Characterization and Ranking Tool

The Mississippi Watershed Characterization and Ranking Tool (MWCRT) was developed by The Geospatial Group under the direction of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). MWCRT is a GIS tool that runs on Desktop ArcGIS and in ArcReader. MWCRT uses GIS to assess readily available statewide spatial datasets within the watersheds of major river basins. The tool helps users determine which watersheds are of higher value based on the presence of important natural resource features. These features are described by land uses and surface water uses of the state. Each spatial layer is placed into a category to determine its resource value on the environment, its impact on human welfare and to assess the stressors placed on each watershed. This information is used to generate values that are normalized and weighted to produce a final score for each watershed. These scores serve as a measuring system by which watersheds are ranked. MWCRT provides MDEQ and its partners with a tool to help manage the state's water resources. This is a basic diagram of the MWCRT data structure. The data are arranged in categories depicting their contribution to protection or restoration project strategies. These categories further compartmentalize the data into specific groupings. These determine the data's influence on the environmental or human welfare.

 

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General GIS Development

The Geospatial Group has produced high quality Information Managment Systems since 1993.  The major end-users throughout this time have been the Corps of Engineers and the State of Mississippi.  The Geospatial Group uses many types of technologies to solve customer challenges.  These technologies range from simple Computer Aided Drafting solutions to enterprise level web mapping services.  Presented here are some of the major projects undertaken by The Geospatial Group. The Geospatial Group's current responsibilities include the development and maintenance of the Enterprise Map Services Backbone for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).  This service is accomplished through the use of ESRI's ArcIMS/ArcSDE and Oracle 9i.  The backbone provides GIS information to the personnel of MDEQ in many forms: simple HTML viewers, published map documents, and direct access by ArcGIS. The Geospatial Group manages the development of the Surface Water Information Management System (SWIMS).  The initial rapid development of this HTML GIS interface for MDEQ was accomplished through the use of Tetra Tech, Inc. out of Fairfax, Va.  The ArcIMS system links many databases of GIS and non-GIS type together.  Every user in MDEQ has access to this Intranet tool. The Geospatial Group performed the initial design and development of the Hydraulic Processes Analysis System (HyPAS) for the US Army Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC).  This GIS-based sytem allows for the analysis of Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler velocity data, Acoustic Doppler Profiler velocity data, bathymetry data, water level data, and weather station data.  The Geospatial Group has recently begun the HyPAS conversion from Avenue to Visual Basic. The Geospatial Group recently designed and developed a Field GIS survey system for Mississippi's National Point Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) collection.  The system included hand-held PC hardware configuration, ArcPad software design, and the organization of state-wide data.  This system was used by MDEQ and Malcolm Pirnie, Inc. in 2002 to gather thousands of water discharge locations across the state of Mississippi. Beginning in 1999, The Geospatial Group has performed the GIS system development and implementation for the EPA Impaired Waterbodies list for the State of Mississippi.  Working with engineers and scientists from MDEQ, a series of program development techniques have been developed to capture the Impaired Waterbody reaches using Dynamic Segmentation. In 1998, The Geospatial Group generated second generation orthophotography and rectification of geomorphology delineations of White Sands Missile Range for the ERDC.  Newly flown photography was used to map geomorphology by ERDC personnel.  The newly acquired photography was ortho-corrected using existing USGS DOQs as a base.  The geomorphology was rectified at the same time to produce a new seamless geomorphology coverage.