Louisville Water Showcases GIS

It’s Geography Awareness Week. On Tuesday, the Department of Geographic & Environmental Sciences at the University of Louisville hosted an event and invited Louisville Water to participate.

This event featured speakers from the UofL School of Medicine, Louisville Parks and Recreation, and TreesLouisville who are using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to support the development and maintenance of an urban tree canopy.

Dan Lambert, Louisville Water’s GIS manager, said the presentations “provided valuable insight into the challenges associated with this work. I remain continually impressed by the diverse applications of GIS technology and the significant benefits it offers when leveraged with foresight to address complex problems.”

The event drew more than 140 participants. Lambert and his team staffed a booth to “raise awareness of the career potential of the technology as it applies to Louisville Water and other utilities.”

“The primary responsibility of the GIS department at Louisville Water is to maintain an accurate and comprehensive GIS database of company assets, using information supplied by field crews and inspectors,” Lambert said. “This database serves as the backbone for several applications. It also underpins various analytical tools and initiatives, including support for the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revision and Lead and Copper Rule Improvements.”

He added that the UofL event not only provided an opportunity to talk to students but also gave him and his team a chance to “network with people from various contracting companies and industries.  We met with representatives of Oracle, GoodMaps, the University of Louisville and the University of Louisville Alumni Association, and Seiler Geospatial, to name a few.”

Louisville Water’s participation underscored the transformative impact of GIS as the company continues to innovate and inspire the next generation of geospatial professionals.

GIS Timeline

Lambert provided this overview of GIS, highlighting key milestones and Louisville Water’s role in the field:

• 1854: Louisville Water Company was founded in the same year that Dr. John Snow created the first disease map in London to trace a cholera outbreak, which is considered a foundational work in spatial analysis and epidemiology. (Our water treatment innovations ultimately helped eliminate cholera outbreaks in the Louisville area.)
• 1960s: Roger Tomlinson, often called the “father of GIS,” developed the Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS) for the Canada Land Inventory to manage natural resource data.
• 1964-1965: Howard Fisher developed one of the first mapping programs, Symap, and established the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis, which was crucial in developing early GIS software and spatial analysis techniques.
• 1981: Esri released ARC/INFO, the first commercial GIS software, which made the technology more widely available to businesses and governments.
• 2001: Louisville Water began a CAD/COBOL-GIS Conversion Project, laying the groundwork for the spatial infrastructure capabilities that we rely on today for analysis and integration into our daily workflows.