Water Management Officials Share Lessons Learned
The Florida team has articulated a number of key best practices that can help guide other state and local entities seeking a better handle on their geospatial information:
- Plan ahead. “We asked Google for a reference architecture and we did a lot of planning up front. We designed how it was going to integrate into our environment,” Piper says. “It really helps to have security and your internal staff part of the project up front, designing the access methods. We did that, and it helped us be successful and deliver a lot faster.”
- Support training. “The technology has evolved, with new programming languages, machine language and AI,” Sculley says. “Google made training available to a dozen or so of my staff. We’ve engaged in the first of four training sessions, and we’re not done.”
- Consider time management. “For my staff, their plates were full before we began this engagement with Google,” Sculley says. “It was important for them to know that they were authorized to make time for this, to participate and to get the most out of this.”
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Smart Water Planning Benefits from Interagency Partnerships
It’s also important to get high-level buy-in when undertaking a major modernization effort.
SFWMD Executive Director Drew Bartlett “was personally involved in presentations early on with the Google team. His direction and support helped to make it happen,” Sculley says.
“We also formed a good partnership with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which provided us funding for this initial development,” he says. “Between DEP and the water management district, the state of Florida truly is committed to this.”
SFWMD hopes to have the system fully operational in time for this year’s algal blooms, which typically start in the spring, and Scully points to a number of other potential use cases on the horizon.
“The coastal ecosystems section in my bureau also experiences algal bloom issues, and they have staff that will be learning how to take advantage of this platform,” he says. The system could also be used to track the status of vegetation in support of more effective stormwater management efforts.
At Google Public Sector, Amalfi says other states could also benefit from this technology. The problem of algal blooms “exists in pretty much every state in the United States, so this is a very repeatable use case,” he says.
“Agriculture is another area where we can use satellite imagery to be able to monitor changes in landscape,” he says. “We can look at water availability and water use. We can also look at the built world, the physical infrastructure. We can use satellite imagery to understand changes to roads, bridges and so on. We need to understand the climate risks associated with that infrastructure as we plan for the future.”