The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008 
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In order to meet’frequent database updating demands for the 
future, a team that consisted of 20 years veteran storm water 
engineer and GIS programmer overviewed the whole database 
updating work flow, predicted the new requirements of the 
storm water system, analyzed current database management, 
and recognized which parts need improvement and how to 
improve them, we consistently agreed the following factors 
should be considered in the new system 
(1) Pipe size, shape, elevation and their connection have to 
be known to analyze the capacity of our storm water 
system. 
(2) Pipe material, installed year, and their condition have to 
be known for the maintenance tracking. Since the pipe is 
underground, we only can measure the two ends of a 
pipe in the corresponding structures. 
(3) Structure size (opening size, depth, shape, etc.), lid 
material and condition must also be known in order to 
analyze the capacity and keep good maintenance. 
(4) In addition, the data updating system should include all 
the attributes that we need, and the operation needs to be 
easy and fast so that the updating work can be 
performed in a timely manner. 
2.2 The Flowchart of Storm Water Database 
Field Name 
OBJECTID 
StruNo 
StruType 
LidType 
LidSize 
RimElev 
InvElev 
CntPipe 
Yrlnstalled 
Condition 
SurveyDate 
Northing 
Easting 
Data Type 
Long int 
Text 
Text 
Text 
Text 
Double 
Double 
Int 
bit 
Text 
Date 
Double 
Double 
Length 
20 
_4_ 
_2_ 
10 
4 
Comments 
Automatic number 
Structure Number 
Structure Type 
Lid’s type 
Lid’s size 
Rim Elevation 
Invert Elevation 
Count of the pipes 
The year installed 
Structure condition 
Survey date 
Y coordinate 
X coordinate 
Table 1. The Data Organization and Types of Structures 
For the pipes: The data organization and types of pipes in 
SWDUS are listed in table 2. 
Figure 1 is a proposed flowchart of SWDUS. This system 
consists of seven modules: 
(1) Entering Field Data; 
(2) Editing Field Data; 
(3) Linking GPS Data to Calculate Pipe Elevation; 
(4) Creating Structure and Pipe Layers; 
(5) Connecting Existing Data; 
(6) Editing the New Features to Control the Data Quality; 
(7) Updating the Existing Database. 
Such design mainly considered the following factors: 
• High automation. From field data collection, data 
processing to database updating, a high degree of 
automation will benefit users to save post-processing 
time and reduce their labor intension. 
• Easy Operation. The system is planned to design for 
those who have little experiences in ArcGIS software 
and/or database operation. Thus, each operation will be 
realized by different styles of menu bar, pull-down 
menu, submenu, and help function. 
• Standardization. In order to be compatible with other 
database, such as Oracle, ArcGIS software, the data type 
and format including data entry, processing, operation, 
etc. will use standard code. 
3. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION 
3.1 Data Model and Organization 
Based on experiences in the organization and discussion with 
different expert in storm water management, City of Norfolk, 
data structure and type of different components are designated 
below. 
For the structures: The data organization and types of 
structures in SWDUS are listed in table 1. 
Field Name 
Type 
Length 
Meaning 
OBJECTID 
Long int 
Automatic number 
UPNO 
Text 
10 
Up-structure number 
UPElev 
Double 
Up-structure elevation 
DNNO 
Text 
10 
Down-structure number 
DNElev 
Double 
Down-structure elevation 
UP DNSTRCT 
Text 
21 
Up-down Stru. numbers 
MAT 
Text 
4 
Pipe's material code 
GEOM 
Text 
2 
Pipe's shape code 
• • • 
• • • 
• • • 
• • • 
Table 2. The Data Organization and Types of Pipes 
For the SW field data: we developed the type of data 
organization to represent geometric data and attribute data for 
describing SW structures and corresponding pipes (see Figure 
2). The Structure number is a unique ID linking GPS data with 
SW field data. 
Figure 2. The SW Field Data Organization/Linking with GPS 
Data 
For the linking of the SW field data with GPS data: we 
developed algorithms to automatically calculate the elevations 
of the pipes, create structure layer and pipe layer based on the 
field collected data. In order to ensure the data will be linked 
and converted automatically, the following data organizeion is 
designated (see Figure 3).