An industry-leading innovative partnership between Northumbrian Water and data management specialists 1Spatial has created a new digital mapping system which is expected to reduce the cost of surveying the sewer network from £10 million to £2.5 million and cut the time taken to complete the process from five years to two years.

By configuring 1Spatial’s unique software using Northumbrian Water’s expert engineering knowledge, a new model of the network was created.

In 2011, some parts of the sewer network that typically lie within private property boundaries were transferred to water company ownership. Since then, Northumbrian Water has been using traditional surveying techniques to identify what was initially expected to be 13,500km of adopted sewers. This has involved such methods as digitising maps from sources including local authorities and developers.

Combined with expert knowledge of the sewer network, enabling the creation of a set of rules that model the actual position of the unmapped sewers, means much of the labour-intensive, time consuming and expensive manual surveying is no longer required.

The use of the new digital mapping system, created in collaboration between Northumbrian Water and Cambridge-based 1Spatial, is expected to reduce the cost of the process from £10 million to £2.5 million and cut the time taken to complete the process from five years to two years.

By creating a full map of the sewer network that includes the adopted piping, Northumbrian Water will be able to:

• respond to problems such as blockages or collapses with a better advance knowledge of the local network, reducing investigation time and speeding up clearances and repairs;
• enhance response times for customers who experience problems with the sewer network in and around their properties.
• identify problem areas and the potential to improve the network where necessary.

The initial digital model that has been created of the adopted sewers has identified an additional 5,000km of piping. This map is now being assessed manually, by teams of surveyors on site utilising geographic information system (GIS) technology, to validate and further refine the mapping technology to create a more accurate network map.

Mike Madine, Northumbrian Water’s Sewerage and New Development Manager, said:

“Giving the best possible service to customers is at the heart of everything that we do. Having the most complete understanding possible of our sewer network helps us to enhance and make more efficient our response to incidents such as blockages and collapses.

“Our partnership with 1Spatial has led to the development of an industry-leading process that combines our expertise and traditional surveying with state of the art mapping technology. The process is also resulting in significant savings in the cost and length of the process, delivering value for money and a valuable resource that otherwise wouldn’t have been available for a number of years.”

1Spatial Group manages the world’s largest Spatial Big Data and works with the users and creators of the largest geospatial databases, helping them collect, store, manage and interpret location-specific information.  The firm partners with leading technology vendors including Oracle and ESRI.