AWWA ACE60045

Tampa Bay Water, Florida's largest wholesale water supplier, together with itsmember governments, supplies approximately 240 million gallons per day (mgd) ofpotable water to nearly two million people in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. Beginningin 2003, Tampa Bay Water's groundwater sources were reduced due to environmentalimpacts and regulatory constraints, and replaced with surface water and desalted water.Since 1998 Tampa Bay Water's Board has authorized $1.25 billion for infrastructureinvestment to support environmental recovery. Tampa Bay Water determined that adecision support system (DSS) would improve its decision-making effectiveness as new,diverse water sources were placed into operation.Tampa Bay Water's DSS is a custom-developed user-interface (referred to as the DSSManager) which provides access into the agency's enterprise database, allowing users toquery data, extract data, conduct analysis on the data, and generate reports and providesaccess to certain models which are used in source forecasting and optimization.Immediate benefits to Tampa Bay Water include:increasing the agency's efficiency in operating the new supply sources;enhance effective management of Tampa Bay Water's complex watersupply/resource systems;improve the agency's data collection, storage, and retrieval process to maximizeenvironmental and cost benefits;facilitate regulatory compliance; and,provide for consistent and uniform decision-making in a complex and dynamicwater supply environment.During a two-year period, Tampa Bay Water conducted a Needs and Assessment Study(Phase I), completed the development of several large-scale applications as well asimplemented a redesign of its enterprise database (Phase II implementation). Phase Iidentified and prioritized 14 requirements that represent new or enhanced water supplyfunctions essential to the agency. Alternatives were defined to meet these 14requirements and a Phase II implementation plan developed. This paper discusses theapproach used to develop the agency's DSS, lessons learned during the development andimplementation of this DSS by Tampa Bay Water, and use of this approach in meetingoperational and planning supply management objectives. Includes 2 references, figures.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

06/17/2004

Number of Pages:

15

File Size:

1 file , 1000 KB