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The GIS Water Resources
Community
The community of people
concerned with the application of GIS in water resources is
diverse, but has several motivations for joining in a common
activity:
The new object modeling concepts and GeoDatabase Model
being introduced with ArcInfo 8 need to be customized for
application in water resources. The same model will
later be introduced with ArcView version 4.
Hydrology and water resources engineering has a long history
of model development for describing the flow and quality
of water in the landscape, but the integration of these
models with GIS data and tools still requires considerable
development. Of all the areas of environmental analysis,
the modeling of water movement has the greatest number of
available computer programs.
A substantial investment in GIS data is being made by many
governmental agencies concerned with water management. This
data needs to be synthesized into forms that can yield improved
information for water modeling and decision-making.
Water is a vital natural resource. GIS users would like
to be able to more directly influence the development of
GIS technology to address water issues
Engineering firms recognize GIS as an attractive technology.
They want to better understand the capabilities of current
methods and data, and estimate the time and resources needed
to achieve practical results.
The community of people concerned with GIS and water resources
is very dispersed both geographically and by technical background.
GIS specialists generally do not have training in hydrology
and water resources engineering. Most engineering professionals
in water resources have little background or training in
GIS. Education and training activities are needed to overcome
these knowledge gaps, especially for professionals already
in the workplace.
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