Developing design specifications for water resources system software to support spatial analytics

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The water resources sector in Canada provides essential services that enable responsible water use (e.g., consumption, extraction, discharge, treatment) of our valuable freshwater resources. Water and wastewater treatment (WWT) facilities are required to report results of their monitoring activities to meet National Performance Standards, and although a National Wastewater Effluent Strategy is now in place (since 2009), water treatment facilities typically report on and interpret their data in isolation, without considering what is happening at WWT facilities upstream or downstream in a spatial context. Eramosa Engineering Inc. provides a large variety of professional engineering services to clients in the water resources and energy sectors. Some of their main clients include municipal WWT across Canada, and they service an increasing number of clients in the energy efficiency sector (e.g., solar panel facilities). Indeed, Eramosa's Reporting and Information System software (e.RIS) is fast becoming a Canadian industry standard for water and wastewater reporting. This software allows municipal clients to perform various tasks; i.e., create reports, graphs, export data, view alarm flags, etc. via their work station, desktop, or favourite mobile device. Eramosa is a forward thinking company that recognizes the need to provide their clients with the ability to visualize their high resolution time series data in a spatial context. The proposed NSERC engage project will allow researchers at Ryerson Urban Water (Dr. Stephanie Melles and her lab) to work collaboratively on the creation of design specifications and pseudo code for a new version of e.RIS that will be able to perform spatial analytics and spatial data visualization. This will be a progressive and valuable service that will both satisfy and help expand Eramosa's client base. Such innovation furthermore stands to benefit the Canadian public by enabling more integrated reporting on the water resources we all depend on.