A Trillion Data Points, One Source of Truth
Stormwater Conference
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Auckland is experiencing a period of unprecedented growth, placing pressure on marginal areas, including some of the regions deepest and largest Flood Plains. 800 people per week are currently making Auckland their home. Demand for flood hazard information is high, whether for backyard subdivisions, or residential and industrial developments of many hundred hectares.
The Healthy Waters Department has embraced the Auckland Council driver to improve customer service. Detailed responses for flood hazard information are provided in a maximum window of as little as three days, to ensure Regulatory deadlines, and Council values are met. Results from stormwater modelling are often the best information available regarding flood hazard.
Auckland Council has good coverage of stormwater models across the region, however current storage across many legacy network drives presents a business risk with regard to consistency, accuracy, and speed of response to internal and external customers. The challenge is to present all modelling outputs in a controlled manner, in an easily accessible portal – to present one source of the truth.
Auckland Council is tackling this issue by mobilising modelling outputs with customised cloud based solutions. Models are being registered in an online cloud database, and the results presented in raster format in a cloud based portal. Mapped at 4m2, and with multiple models per catchment, this currently equates to tens of billions of data points, and will likely exceed a trillion points in the future – this demands innovative data storage and interrogation methodologies.
This paper shares aspects of the scalable solution Auckland Council is adopting, and how other Water Authorities may be able to adopt aspects of Auckland’s solution, to optimise return on investment from modelling projects. The possibility exists for a nationwide model database, based on Auckland’s investment in this area. Auckland Council brings one key message to other Water Authorities – start now!