During the summer of 2019, I participated in a multi-year mapping project for my alma mater, California State University, Northridge (CSUN).  The project was part of the broader-scoped goal of bringing the university’s irrigation maintenance system into the digital age where the infrastructure of the system could be more efficiently managed.  The image below shows the extent of the area my team worked on (~109 acres) along with the overall extent of the campus (~356 acres).

The three-person team I was working with was tasked with the following:

  • Collecting location and type data points for various irrigation system components
  • Manually drawing the watering extent of the various sprinkler types throughout the work area

Collecting Data Points

The data point collection portion of the work entailed locating each irrigation system component in a given work area and adding its location and component type to a geodatabase via the Esri ArcGIS Collector app.

The related system components to be located and identified included controllers, irrigation boxes, remote control valves, backflow preventers, and various others.

Controllers

The controllers (also know as timers or clocks) are the “brains” of a given irrigation area.  They can be programmed to discretely control the irrigation schedules of multiple separate zones within the controller’s designated area.

Wall-mounted (left) and standalone (right) controllers
Irrigation Boxes

The irrigation boxes house the subterranean components that connect the system’s plumbing and provide for control over the flow of water.  Some of these components include remote control valves, master valves, check valves, ball/gate valves, flow sensors, and quick couplers.

Full (left) and working (right) views of irrigation boxes
Remote control valves

Remote control valves are solenoid-controlled water flow valves that can be automatically opened and closed on a pre-programmed schedule by an irrigation system controller.

Two examples of remote control valves
Backflow preventerS

Backflow preventers are designed to keep potentially contaminated downstream water from flowing back up to the clean water source.

Backflow preventer
Other components…
Master valve
Check valve
Ball valve
Flow sensor
Quick coupler

Drawing the Watering Extent

Once all of the above-noted components were located and identified within a given work area, we were tasked with drawing the watering extent for each zone.  The drawings were done by hand on paper printouts of the work areas and subsequently digitized by other project team members, using Esri ArcMap.

Hand drawn watering extents digitized in ArcMap

An online map depicting some of the public-facing results of this effort can be found here.

The summer 2019 team’s mobile office!
July 11th, 2019 – The author working on RCV 63-14 at the southwest corner of the Extended University Commons.

To this day I cannot walk by an irrigation box without commenting on it!

Here are a couple more links discussing the wider scope and implications of this project:

CSUN’s Drought RESponse

best practices 2017

Finally, I would like to thank Laura Yetter (CSUN Facilities Planning, Design, and Construction) for having me be a part of this fun project. Please see her commendation of my work here.