Environment, Coasts, Oceans, & Infrastructure

Hello Engineers,

I am finishing up my undergrad in civil engineering and am drawn to jump in to learning arcgis. My question to you is, as an experienced engineer in the water resources field, will this help me get to my desired position? I am hoping to work in drought and flood mitigation by applying engineering solutions to repair and restore watersheds and underground water storage. Some of my student peers feel that I learning gis/arcgis software is a waist of time and that I should just focus on auto-cad. Please advise by letting me know which computer software, besides Word/Power Point/Excel that will make me competitive in the field of watershed restoration. 

Thank you,

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Carl Humphrey S.M.ASCE
Oxnard CA
[carl.humphrey.294@...]carl.humphrey.294@...
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Hi Carl,

ArcGIS is a very powerful tool in the water resources field and I would definitely recommend becoming familiar with the program. In my experience, AutoCAD has been great with design but ArcGIS takes the cake for data processing. I hope this helps and good luck with everything!

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Lindsey Kellar A.M.ASCE
Burke VA
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Dear Carl

Hi,

I just want to tell you a little bit about modelling and simulation of hydrological processes at watershed scale.
There are a number of software packages and models such as Hec family models (HEC-HMS,HEC-RAS, HEC-DSS, HEC-5,......) , Mike family models (MIKE11 HD,MIKE SHE, MIKE Flood Forecasting,....) , SWMM and SUSTAIN models for urban runoff management and LID siting, SWAT model,........ .
Also some programming environments like MATLAB,R and Python that you can be used for constructing your own conceptual models as well as data-driven modelling. Nowadays, integration of conceptual models and data-driven models as hybrid models are increasingly developing by companies and research institutes.
As you do know, the main objectives of modelling are understanding of hydrological processes and feedbacks between them and also analysis of scenarios (Climate changes, land use changes, managing  sluices gates of dam, land development (LID approach in urban and suburban watersheds).
If you have further questions , please feel free and  don't hesitate to contact me.

Best Wishes
Ali

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Alireza Moghaddam Nia Aff.M.ASCE
Associate Professor of Hydrology
University of Tehran
Karaj
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Carl:

Please keep in mind that AutoCad and GIS are not the same thing. A GIS is indispensable for managing and analyzing spatial data. Most of the H & H software used in water supply and flood studies interact with it. For the type of work you mentioned, you definitely won't go wrong by becoming proficient in GIS.

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Mark Wilsnack P.E., D.WRE, F.EWRI, F.ASCE
PRINCIPAL ENGINEER
South Florida Water Management District
West Palm Beach FL
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Hi Carl, I work in water resources engineering and use ArcGIS every day. I know that AutoCAD/Civil3D can do a lot of the same things (and probably more), but I'd say ArcGIS is easier to learn if you're looking to get into technical work quickly. It will be sufficient for a lot of H&H analysis and floodplain modeling/mapping, but if you're more interested in design, then you'll need to get into CAD (something I'm about to do as well). Good luck!

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Justin Baker A.M.ASCE
Water Resources Engineer
AECOM
Austin TX
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Carl-
By all means, take the jump into ArcGIS. GIS is an important and useful tool, especially for watershed planning. I commend your inclination to seek employment related to drought and flood mitigation. AutoCAD is widely used in civil engineering firms, however it is primarily used for design purposes. Best wishes.

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Stephen Crum P.E., M.ASCE
Principal
Macris Hendricks & Glascock, P.A.
Jefferson MD
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Learn GIS!
I use it with SWMM, HEC, MS4 mapping, CityWorks, and AutoCAD mapspace.

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Andrew Stepnick P.E.
Municipal Stormwater and Sanitary Planning, Design and Construction
City of Toledo, Ohio (Located on Lake Erie)
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Carl,

I agree with what others have said. I took several classes in GIS and they have been indispensable for me. Autocad will teach you how to model and is a more cut and dry learning process, but GIS will teach you how to model processes (especially useful for mapping infrastructure) and in addition, once you learn Python, you can custom create a template that can print to PDF any layer based on your code. GIS is a standard, especially among cities and companies dealing heavily with infrastructure mapping. Good luck to you.

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Kevin Sonico EIT, A.M.ASCE
Saratoga Springs UT
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Hello, Carl!

I very rarely use GIS or ARCGIS.  Most places I've worked, if I need the data extrapolated so I can bring it into Acad Civil 3D, someone else in the office, who has more experience with GIS, will create a dwg for me from the data to use or to insert/xref into Acad.

I am currently providing Acad dwgs for a shoreline restoration project. The lead engineer is a Coastal Engineer & has provided me with GIS data to use in my drawings.

So, my answer is, yes.  Learn GIS/ARCGIS & how to extrapolate info so it can be loaded into a cad dwg.

Good luck!

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Linda Moody EIT, A.M.ASCE
AECOM
Germantown MD
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YES! I would highly recommend taking an ArcGIS class. I took a few at the end of my master's degree program almost 20 years ago when it was just starting to be used widely and I still use it to this day. The tools are getting more and more powerful and can greatly increase your productivity.

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Daniel Rosenberg P.E., M.ASCE
Senior Technical Specialist
AECOM
Cleveland OH
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Hi Carl,
You should learn ArcGIS. Other basic software are Auto-CAD, Micro-Station, and Access. For water resources you should learn, SWMM, HEC-HMS, and HEC-RAS as a minimum. There are a lot of other software and some of that can be learned on the job. Arc-GIS is used to input and output data from most water resource modeling software. Different agencies, parts of the country and world prefer different software and their consultants will obviously use the preferred software. If you are proficient in several of these and familiar with the rest you are more valuable to your employer.
Wishing you the best,

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Robert Prager P.E., M.ASCE

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Both AutoCAD and ArcGIS are very useful programs to learn and will help you be competitive. I think that each program has a different purpose...I tend to use ArcGIS for studies, planning level projects, and large areas and AutoCAD for more detailed design and construction drawings.

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Carrie Poytress P.E., M.ASCE
ENGR MANAGER
Goleta CA
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Carl,

Continue your pursuit of learning GIS.  It is very a valuable skill to have for what you will be doing.  I do similar work and it is very useful to hav a strong CAD and GIS background.  CAD is good for design, but GIS is better for data management and serves as a good tool for evaluating and displaying data.  An ideal new-hire out of college would have skills in both.

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Sam Diaz P.E., M.ASCE
Nevada City CA
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Thank you all for your replies. I will plan on continuing to strengthen my know how of Python and Auto-desk. I will also begin the path towards being proficient with ArcGIS. 

Best Regards,

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Carl Humphrey S.M.ASCE
Oxnard CA
[carl.humphrey.294@...]carl.humphrey.294@...
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2017 14:07
From: Sam Diaz
Subject: Advantageous Computer Programs

Carl,

Continue your pursuit of learning GIS.  It is very a valuable skill to have for what you will be doing.  I do similar work and it is very useful to hav a strong CAD and GIS background.  CAD is good for design, but GIS is better for data management and serves as a good tool for evaluating and displaying data.  An ideal new-hire out of college would have skills in both.

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Sam Diaz P.E., M.ASCE
Nevada City CA
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Hi Carl,

For more information and useful educational materials, visit the following websites:

- Packt Publishing (they have ArcGIS, Python, and CAD books, often for free along with data modeling /analysis and other programming books and videos)
- ESRI, for the price of an email address, you can get access to many free online courses and get on a list for free webinars that use modeling.

The question of CAD or GIS would be based on what type of job you are doing. My day job as a GIS analyst uses ArcGIS and some CAD. For my research, it is almost 100% GIS as I am really into process modeling. I come from a high volume, global scale, IT world so I am less than impressed with many existing environmental modeling tools and tend to enhance or make my own. I also tend to skip the GIS and CAD packages when it comes to data queries and use built-in tools for the database. But that is the 25+ years of IT taking over.

I would recommend learning what you can about Geometric Networks for GIS. I like how they are used in modeling transport scenarios. 

Please feel free to contact me as I have a much longer list of programming and GIS resources that I am willing to share. 

Regards,

Shelley Jeltema

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Shelley Jeltema S.M.ASCE

GIS Analyst
Consumers Energy
PhD Student - Environmental Engineering

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Original Message:
Sent: 05-05-2017 11:59
From: Carl Humphrey
Subject: Advantageous Computer Programs

Thank you all for your replies. I will plan on continuing to strengthen my know how of Python and Auto-desk. I will also begin the path towards being proficient with ArcGIS. 

Best Regards,

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Carl Humphrey S.M.ASCE
Oxnard CA
[carl.humphrey.294@...]carl.humphrey.294@...
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