Giswater is an open-source project software created having in mind sharing knowledge in the sectors related to water supply, sewerage systems, urban drainage and the investigation of flood risks by acting like a linking platform between hydraulic simulation software, spatial database and Geographic information Systems(GIS) software. Giswater connects water simulation programs to a powerful GIS interface, and lays the foundation for full management of water supply systems, sewerage systems, drainage networks and rivers using Web Map Services (WMS), System Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) or Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMS).
Main advantages:
1. Development of master plans of water supply, sewerage and drainage systems incorporated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) without any license costs.
2. Potential to develop master plans using only one platform which is 100% opensource software, with all the elements developing water management systems of water supply network and sewerage network such as EPANET, EPA SWMM, GIS, BBDD, WMS, ERP, CRM, mobile devices or SCADA's.
3. Potential of collaborative projects in such a way that even expensive proprietary software could not perform up to date. Large hydraulic engineering projects were either carried out in a sequential or a fragmented manner. This approach of database multi-use would make it possible to work on a real cooperative manner due to the fact of accessing the database simultaneously and independently on the number of users.
4. The possibility of the technological dominance of the user is becoming a reality due to knowledge sharing which is the main characteristic of Giswater. The key element is that the end-user is no longer dependent of the technology and its suppliers, but rather on the training they receive.
5. A project which brings together different technologies which are clearly tested and proved reliable such as QGIS, PostgreSQL, EPA NET, EPA SWMM with thousands of users all over the world improving and accelerating progress in the respective communities.
