Web GIS-Based Decision Support System for Urban Storm Water Infrastructure Management: A Case of Nifas Silk Lafto Sub-City, Addis Ababa
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Date
2022-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Urban drainage infrastructures’ life-cycle management and associated complex decision making
processes require exploitations of the benefits of advanced digital-technologies and/or spatial
decision support systems. But, actually how this hypothetical concept can be materialized in line
with varying ground contexts and other related factors do require investigation and scientific
reasoning. And thus, the purpose of this study is to model an urban storm water drainage
infrastructure maintenance management scheme through a Web GIS-Based Decision Support
System (WGBDSS) taking the case of Nifas Silk Lafto sub-city of Addis Ababa. In this theme, the
study explores the synergy between WGBDSS and drainage infrastructure maintenance
management core issues through integration of drainage infrastructures’ physical condition
assessment, current drainage management practice of study area, hydrologic analysis, web
technology, Multi-Criteria Decision Aids (MCDA) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method
for analysing and organizing complex decisions based on objective standards of judgment. Web
GIS-based decision support tools that exploit multi-criteria matrices for optimization algorithms of
structured query language (SQL) were also utilized. In addition, starting from data collection to
final output production of the overall study, freely available softwares and open source resources
have been exploited. Besides, ArcGIS, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Survey Master and Kobo toolbox
mobile applications, Global mapper, and surveying equipment like Differential Global Positioning
System (DGPS-RTK; for drainage routes’ locational information collection) were utilized in data
processing, analysing, and presentation. On top of this ApacheTomcat, Open layer, GeoServer, map
store were also used to publish the geospatial database and related outputs on developed portal of
the Web GIS platform. Moreover, slope analysis, the runoff flow direction, flow accumulation,
watershed delineation and flood vulnerable area identification, and the like hydrologic analysis
were thoroughly performed and respective maps were also produced using desktop ArcMap
application. The findings of basic and advanced physical condition assessment of drainage
networks of the study area revealed that 80% of urban drainage routes out of the total networks
demand repair type of intervention, 8% of drainage structures call for upgrading type of
intervention, another 8% require for replacement and the rest 4% demand for planned type of
maintenance. Eventually, the final result of this study implies that decision making through ranking
competing and complex problematic drainage networks for maintenance prioritization purpose need
a paradigm shift from the conventional drainage infrastructure life-cycle management approach (i.e.
more of “fix when failed”) to WGBDSS.
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Keywords
Decision making, Decision Support Systems (DSS), Drainage Infrastructure, Maintenance Management