Water, Weather & Environment
Centralizing data management for irrigation decisions
Making smart decisions based on consolidated data
Established in 1887, the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) was the first publicly owned irrigation district in the state of California that also provided electric retail energy directly to homes,
farms and businesses. TID sought to gain control of a data management problem that was quickly getting out of control. It recognized that a central repository was essential to manage all of the information needed for optimal operation of the Don Pedro Reservoir. Data had to be validated, calculated, managed, archived and reported in real-time.
- The challenge
- The solution
- The benefits
The challenge
The challenge
The Turlock Irrigation District was looking for a flexible data management system designed for collecting and managing large amounts of water data, while also providing the basis for decision support. Key to this was effectively managing
operations of the Don Pedro Reservoir to minimize potential flooding impacts to downstream facilities.
This required the data management system to have the capability to automatically collect, validate, calculate, manage and report on real-time and archived data.
Key considerations included:
- Integrating data with existing water resources models
- Importing data from SCADA, CDEC, USGS, NWS, and in-house financial systems
- Offering a platform for water conservation and irrigation efficiency
- Monitoring inputs from environmental to energy production parameters
- Increasing data reliability and security
- Increasing data forwarding, exporting and reporting capabilities
- Calculating water balances
- Archiving a variety of data sources and manage various data formats
The solution
The solution
In 2012 TID decided to implement Water Information Systems KISTERS (WISKI) as its new centralized data management and decision support software solution.
The deployment of WISKI would manage more than 250,000 acres and serve in excess of 4,900 irrigation customers. TID
immediately benefited from the powerful data automation features by utilizing robust report-generating tools, automating both reporting and data export cycles, and integrating with MS Excel spreadsheets.
The benefits
The benefits
Increased data quality
WISKI has provided Turlock Irrigation District with the ability to perform automated quality assurance and quality control on high-resolution incoming data and pass it to models in near-real time — greatly reducing the possibility of costly errors. In addition the software has automated and streamlined reporting through various media such as email, FTP and file sharing sites with partner organizations including the Modesto Irrigation District, the City of Modesto, and the County of San Francisco, all of whom rely on KISTERS enterprise solution.
A minimum 40% reduction (savings) in labor-hours
Since the deployment of WISKI, TID has saved over 40% in time processing data during normal non-flood control operating periods (38 labor hours per week savings) and upwards of 70% (73 labor hours per week savings) during flood control operational periods. With the reporting capabilities of WISKI the district has experienced an approximately 60% increase in reporting efficiency (approximately 12 labor hours per week savings) during non-flood control operation periods and approximately 130% increase in reporting efficiency (approximately 26 labor hours per week savings) during flood operating periods compared to previous systems.
Management of multiple data types
With many organizations needing to perform data corrections or validation, data management solutions must have the ability to manage various data types, i.e. stage, elevation, flow, dollars, kWh. Turlock Irrigation District is now able to do so easily and cost-effectively with KISTERS off-the-shelf data management system. The district has all necessary components to successfully and efficiently operate its hydrology network.