South Australia Selects Aquatic Informatics for New Strategic Water Information Management System
The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) will replace its Hydstra solution with AQUARIUS to enable more efficient access to data for stakeholders across South Australia.
Hobart, Australia – September 26, 2018 – Aquatic Informatics, a mission-driven software company that organises the world’s water data, has announced today that the South Australian Department for Environment and Water (DEW) has selected the AQUARIUS platform for its Strategic Water Information Management System (SWIMS). By centralising real-time operations on the AQUARIUS platform, the DEW will optimise data management for its 6,700 sites across South Australia.
The DEW acts as an authority on the state’s environment and natural resources to help governments, businesses, and individuals make informed, long-term decisions. It conducts 95% of the state’s groundwater monitoring and approximately 65% of the state’s surface water monitoring. The Department is also a key provider of flood data in a flood warning network comprising of federal, state, and local government agencies. As a co-manager of the River Murray basin, the DEW also has a major role in protecting and monitoring the river basin to ensure its well-being.
“We are deeply honoured to have been chosen by the DEW, the lead agency for water in South Australia,” commented Ed Quilty, President and CEO of Aquatic Informatics. “The Government of South Australia has chosen the AQUARIUS platform in order to provide more meaningful, reliable, and accessible water data analysis, organisation, and dissemination. AQUARIUS will enable staff at the Department to save time on administrative tasks and will ultimately provide them with the tools to make more informed decisions, while mitigating risks and meeting regulatory requirements.”
AQUARIUS will replace the aging applications and infrastructure associated with the DEW’s current water monitoring applications framework. The project will deliver a new system capable of meeting the Department’s needs for years into the future, which includes replacing the surface water and water quality monitoring systems, replacing the current web portal, replacing the current data acquisition system, establishing stronger integrations with numerous internal and external systems, and establishing more powerful reporting capabilities. AQUARIUS will also allow the DEW to add additional functionality around flood hazard management, river monitoring, drainage operations, and various environmental and water infrastructure projects requiring specific monitoring activities. Furthermore, AQUARIUS provides an automated and flexible way to deliver data to the DEW’s various stakeholders.
The Invitation to Supply was issued in September 2017, and following a formal evaluation process, the DEW selected the AQUARIUS platform. “There are many reasons why we chose AQUARIUS,” said Peter Baylis, Project Manager at the DEW. “And two of the standout features of the AQUARIUS offering are the end-to-end integration of the tool set, from data capture to publication, and the ease of configuration. The screens used to configure new sites and connect data sources are simple to navigate compared to other product offerings in the environmental data management market. This will reduce our reliance on specialist resources to manage site configurations and data clarification. We’ve also seen the incredible performance possibilities for AQUARIUS, and this is important as we need a system that would be resilient and capable of handling the frequent status updates required for our flood monitoring program.”
The staff at the DEW were previously experiencing problems when trying to maintain the overly complex and at times unreliable application framework of their previous solution. “The job of keeping the systems running has fallen on our internal IT team, who have done a great job gluing everything together in the past, but with this new system we wanted to find a modern tool set that was fit-for-purpose and would be able to integrate these systems in a more manageable way,” stated Mr. Baylis. “Therefore, application structure and integration between telemetry and data delivery and presentation was paramount for the future water monitoring application framework of South Australia, and we’re happy to have found that with AQUARIUS.”
About Aquatic Informatics Inc.
Aquatic Informatics is a mission-driven software company that organises the world’s water data to make it accessible and useful. As the world’s largest water data management company, and with more than 1,000 customers in 60 countries, Aquatic Informatics is unique in that it provides information technology solutions for all water: source water, drinking water, municipal and industrial wastewater, and the receiving environment. Aquatic Informatics is guided by its 3P core values which balance Planet, People, and Prosperity. These values run through the entire business and can be seen in decision making, employee support, software donations, volunteer work, and commitment to customers.
For more information about Aquatic Informatics, visit www.aquaticinformatics.com.
About the Department for Environment and Water (DEW), Government of South Australia
The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) acts as an authority on the state’s environment and natural resources to help governments, businesses, and individuals make informed, long-term decisions. As the lead agency for water in South Australia, the DEW’s purpose is to help South Australians conserve, sustain, and prosper. Its main roles include being a steward of the state’s natural resources; a facilitator of community involvement in and taking responsibility for the environment; an authority on the state’s environment and natural resources; and a custodian of public parks, gardens, heritage places, and crown lands for public benefit and enjoyment.
For more information about DEW, visit www.environment.sa.gov.au.