NewsDrop Winter 2022

First Responders Program map sample.

Questions like these got members of the EAA Recharge Zone Protection (RZP) team thinking about the potential mixing of firefighting water runoff and regulated substance, and how the EAA might help prevent such mixing from occurring. For years, the RZP team has regulated facilities that store regulated substances (hazardous substances, petroleum products, etc.) on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. As part of the regulation, facilities are required to provide the EAA with documentation detailing the type and amount of regulated substance stored at their facility. In addition, the facilities are required to provide EAA staff with a facility map that includes all recharge features, location of

water wells, site drainage patterns, storm sewer inlets, firefighting water connections, etc. In early 2017, the RZP team began envisioning how this information could be compiled into one central location for Fire Departments to access when responding to a fire. The years that followed consisted of hours of GIS mapping, countless meetings, and hours of ground truthing in the field until the EAA’s First Responder Program became a reality. Today, the City of San Antonio Fire Department can digitally access up-to date facility maps, on site photographs, and facility registration forms that provide the type, volume, and location of regulated substance stored for 38 facilities located within Bexar County and on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.

To recreate the maps, EAA staff used a combination of ArcGIS software, and Quick Terrain Modeler (QTM), a program specially acquired to facilitate the First Responder Program. The QTM software uses LIDAR elevation data to map surface topography. Knowing the surface topography allowed EAA staff to conduct water accumulation simulations. These simulations essentially created a hypothetical flood event at a given facility, thus allowing EAA staff to locate areas at the facility where water would accumulate. Another interesting simulation is QTM’s Raindrop tool. Using the Raindrop tool, EAA Staff would click on the map containing the LIDAR elevation data and the program would calculate where water will flow downstream to its stopping point.

IN DEVELOPING THE EAA’S FIRST RESPONDER PROGRAM, EAA STAFF SPENT SIGNIFICANT TIME BUILDING A RELATIONAL GEODATABASE, GROUND TRUTHING IT TO CREATE A DIGITAL TWIN AND DOING FLOOD ANALYSIS TO DELIVER NEW INFORMATION THAT DIDN’T EXIST BEFORE, AND DELIVERED IT DIRECTLY TO THE FIRST RESPONDER MOBILE DEVICES INSIDE FIRE TRUCKS AS AN AUTOMATICALLY UPDATED MAP APP THAT COULD BE EASILY READ.

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