InfoWorks meets modeling needs in New Zealand
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InfoWorks meets modeling needs in New Zealand Wallingford Software’s suite of InfoWorks hydraulic modeling software solutions is meeting with considerable success in New Zealand. A quarter of all the country’s local councils have already opted to buy one or more of the solutions to help meet the country’s complex water and wastewater planning and optimization requirements |
New Zealand’s water and wastewater services are predominantly the responsibility of the country’s many local government bodies – the country has 12 regional authorities, which are responsible for river management and flood control, and 74 territorial authorities, in the form of 16 city councils and 58 district councils, which are mainly responsible for potable water, wastewater and stormwater services.
Christchurch City Council is one of the local government bodies to have recently purchased InfoWorks WS, the suite’s potable water modeling solution, from Jeff Booth Consulting, the software solution’s national distributor. Christchurch, population 350,000, is the largest city in the Canterbury region on the east coast of the South Island. Christchurch City Council’s Contract Document for ‘Supply of Water Distribution Modeling Software’ notes that the authority was “looking for a software that would link directly to its in-house GIS and enable it to build and operate models for its ten pressure zones and ultimately combine these models into one overall model for the city”.
Christchurch plans to use the software to enable it t
- Plan for growth;
- Respond promptly and effectively to supply deficiency issues;
- Reduce non-revenue water by better control of the system;
- Increase turnover in reservoirs to improve water quality;
- Prepare for possible water resource constraints and tighter abstraction rules;
- Rationalize and re-zone to enable better system management;
- Optimize operational efficiencies and reduce pumping and life cycle costs;
- Optimize mains replacement and rehabilitation work;
- Provide an improved level of services to customers and simulate fire flows.
Ashburton District Council plans to use the common modeling platform of the Infoworks suite and has invested in both InfoWorks CS and WS. Ashburton is sited in central Canterbury midway between the coastal cities of Christchurch and Timaru. The district council’s water services department is responsible for the delivery of services through the district´s 14 reticulated water supply schemes, three wastewater schemes, stormwater systems and 3,600km stockwater race network (a network of open water races supplying farms with water for animals).
Rotorua District Council is New Zealand’s fourth largest district council, sited in the Bay of Plenty, North Island. The council made the decision to buy InfoWorks WS last year. Water Supply Utilities Operations Engineer Kim Lockie says: “After a thorough evaluation of water modeling packages, we decided that InfoWorks WS was the best software available to meet our needs.
‘We wanted to be able to build models quickly and accurately so that we could spend more time using the models to better understand and manage our system. InfoWorks has allowed us to do this.”
Jeff Booth adds: “Given New Zealand’s complex water and wastewater needs and sensitive environmental heritage, the ability of the InfoWorks suite of software solutions to provide effective planning and problem solving tools matches local needs perfectly.”
