A Contribution to the Improvement of Water Supply Network Maintenance in Cameroon Using Mobile GIS and Web Mapping

Abstract

The management of the water supply networks (WSN) of Cameroon is a very big challenge, particularly in terms of maintenance and monitoring. This paper aimed at contributing to the improvement of the reactive maintenance of the water networks of Cameroon but also to open a way towards a proactive maintenance in this country. It demonstrated the great advantage offered by a tablet using a mobile GIS (Geographic Information System) for visualizing and finding underground network elements. Another tool that was essential in this document was Google’s Fusion Tables (GFT) which is a free data visualization web tool. Based on some sample data of pipes and valves collected in Ekounou quarter, thematic web maps displaying data points and spatial information were developed in order to demonstrate how Web Mapping can help decide when and what network element to change. A mechanism of updating databases and then web maps was also highlighted in the last part of the paper where it is suggested a proactive schema for maintenance and monitoring of Cameroon’s WSN.

Keywords: Water supply network, Mobile GIS, Web mapping, GNSS, Predictive models of pipe failures