The St. Louis region is no stranger to the benefits that come from living along major rivers, as well as the issues that can arise. Geospatial science is being harnessed to help analyze and solve those issues.
In our weekly segment on Total Information A.M., KMOX's Megan Lynch speaks with Siddharth Saksena, Assistant Professor, The Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, and member of the Planning Committee for the American Water Resources Association's Geospatial Water Technology Conference.
Water quality, access to clean drinking water, flood mitigation, climate issues, agricultural water use are just a few of the issues the AWRA examines. "Ground water depletion, managed aquifer recharge is one of those areas of tremendous potential," adds Saksena. "We are depleting our groundwater resources faster than we can imagine."
He tells KMOX, more recently partners have been looking at overall systems, "trying to look at how each of these issues can potentially impact each other and then work toward more ecosystem health and public health benefits." Saksena says new geospatial technologies take monitoring and modeling of data to a new level. For example that modeling helps with more early warning systems. "Not just being able to say what's the risk of flooding in a location, but actually being able to say 18 hours in advance this is the road that's going to get flooded, these are the houses that are potentially at risk so you can plan for a better evacuation."
Saksena adds geospatial tech could also be used to track water quality and PFAS chemicals as well as issues of water equity in the world.
The AWRA is hosting the Geospatial Water Technology Conference (GWTC) in March. Members will be in St. Louis in the fall for a major conference.
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