GZA Infrastructure Protection Technology Wins Major ACEC Awards
July 09 2024 - 1:28PM
Business Wire
GIS-based toolkit can predict risks of erosion and landslides
for highways, railroads, pipelines, electric transmission, and
more
For owners and operators of complex networks of horizontal
infrastructure such as highways, railroads, and powerlines and
pipelines, a major challenge today is predicting and
cost-effectively deploying preventive maintenance dollars towards
the areas of their systems at higher risk from soil erosion and
landslides.
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INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION TOOL: This
screen grab from a new award-winning GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc.
GeoTool powered by ArcGIS shows how the software platform can
quickly identify “high hazard areas” vulnerable to erosion and
landslides. Suitable for use by a wide range of horizontal
infrastructure managers, including highway agencies, railroads,
pipeline and powerline operators, and others, the “Erosion-Slope
Stability Toolkit” was originally developed by GZA for the Maine
Department of Transportation and New England Transportation
Consortium (NETC) and recently won top honors from the American
Council of Engineering Companies. (Graphic: Business Wire)
GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. (GZA), a leading multi-disciplinary
firm providing geotechnical, environmental, ecological, water, and
construction management services, recently received major
engineering awards from the American Council of Engineering
Companies (ACEC) and ACEC of Maine for its “Erosion-Slope Stability
Toolkit” that directly addresses this critical need for
infrastructure managers in a cost-effective, easy-to-use way.
Originally developed for the Maine Department of Transportation
and New England Transportation Consortium (NETC), the toolkit
evaluates enormous Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data sets
including topography, land use, surficial geology, and floodplains
to identify infrastructure segments at higher risk of soil erosion
or landslides.
GZA President and CEO Patrick Sheehan said: “Transportation and
energy leaders face extraordinary challenges today to protect their
infrastructure from a wide range of threats, including extreme
weather and the impacts of climate change. The GZA Erosion/Slope
Stability Toolkit offers an innovative, cost-effective solution for
managers to identify the segments of their networks potentially at
higher risk to erosion and landslides specifically so they can best
prioritize preventative maintenance investment.”
The prototype ESRI ArcGIS toolkit developed for the Maine DOT
has also been used with NETC to develop a multi-scale, multi-season
land-based erosion and landslide modeling and monitoring toolkit
for the five other New England states: Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The same principles and
techniques used to apply the Maine prototype to other states’
highways can be applied in other jurisdictions and for all kinds of
horizontal infrastructure including fire roads in forests critical
to providing access to firefighting crews.
In a letter to ACEC nominating GZA for the award, the Maine DOT
noted that the toolkit has “a user-friendly ESRI GIS interface”
that “provide[s] easy access to identify, monitor, and forecast
roadway sections vulnerable to erosion and instability … [and]
allows easy navigation of a large area and screening for
slope/erosion issues without performing complex numerical modeling
or calculations.’’
Leading the ongoing development of the toolkit for GZA have been
Bin Wang, Aimee Mountain, Daniel Stapleton, and Christopher Snow.
Wang is a Senior Technical Specialist and civil and water resources
engineer at GZA. Mountain is a Senior Project Manager who
specializes in data management, spatial analysis, and development
of GIS-based asset management and environmental assessment systems.
Stapleton, now retired from GZA, was a Senior Principal and Senior
Vice President at who headed up GZA’s Natural Hazard Risk
Management, Climate Adaptation, and Resilience services. Snow is a
Principal and Vice President who manages GZA’s Portland office.
GZA received an ACEC National Recognition Award and an ACEC
Maine Grand Conceptor Award for the toolkit earlier this
spring.
About GZA
GZA is a multi-disciplinary, employee-owned firm providing
Geotechnical, Environmental, Ecological, Water, and Construction
Management services. GZA’s more than 700 professionals are based in
32 offices across the United States. Our corporate headquarters is
at 249 Vanderbilt Avenue, Norwood, Mass. 02062.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240709821690/en/
Media contact: Angela Cincotta, GZA Chief of Marketing and
Communications, 781-401-0561.