New York City Watershed Protection Program
The New York City water supply system provides 1.4 billion gallons of high quality drinking water to almost nine million New Yorkers every day - 8 million City residents and 1 million people upstate.
To ensure that New Yorkers will continue to enjoy high quality, affordable drinking water well into the 21 st century, the City developed a comprehensive, long-range watershed protection and water quality enhancement program.
The program incorporates a multifaceted watershed management strategy to protect and improve the public drinking supply for decades to come.
Program Summary
- $6.2M, Multi-year Contract
- New York City Watershed encompasses nineteen (19) reservoirs and 2,000 square miles in the Catskill/Delaware and Croton Watersheds of Upstate New York
- Sponsored by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Client is NYC Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP)
- Technical services include: Remote Sensing, Image Processing, GIS Applications, Software Engineering, Water Quality Modeling, Database Management, and Systems Architecture Design
Program Objectives
- Develop an integrated, ArcGIS/Oracle-based, water quality data management system for improved watershed management for the NYC Watershed. This robust GIS database management system will provide for long-term program needs.
- Develop a flexible, adaptive GIS database framework that has the capability to integrate a large set of existing geospatial data and water quality data. The database will allow for distinct layers to address a variety of water quality modeling and monitoring needs, including new high-resolution 1-foot Color Infrared (CIR) imagery, LiDAR-based elevation models, and land cover/land use data.
- Develop a semi-automated modeling support tool set that consists of modules to support the terrestrial models - Generalized Watershed Loading Function (GWLF) and Upstate Freshwater Institute's (UFI's) reservoir model. This tool will be expandable to include other potential basin hydrology models - such as Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), as well as hillslope/landscape hydrology models such as Soil Moisture Routing (SMR). This effort will complement the existing NYCDEP modeling efforts with enhanced graphical user interfaces, tools, and visualization capabilities.
- Develop a scenario support tools set to address Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs), phosphorous loads, land acquisition, forestry stewardship, and stream bank restoration programs.
- Develop the capability to allow multiple levels of database access, including Intranet/Internet.
