DMSMART

Technical Note DOER-N2

April 1998

DMSMART

Knowledge of dredging project management challenges and involvement with DAN-NY led WES

to propose development of DMSMART under the DOER Program's Comprehensive Open Water

Site Management System work unit. DMSMART will build on the experience gained with

DAN-NY. Because of the complexity of site management problems, DAN-NY already has many

features that will be helpful to other Corps Districts, and will be considered for DMSMART.

However, DMSMART will be an improvement over DAN-NY in several key ways. DMSMART

will include data on the dredging site in addition to the disposal site. This should greatly increase

its utility. In addition to open ocean sites, the types of disposal sites allowed within DMSMART

will be expanded to include riverine and estuarine sites. The ability to manage confined disposal

facilities will also be included. DMSMART will include access to a greater number of WES models

for predicting dredged material fate. DMSMART will be owned by the Corps; therefore,

DMSMART software will be available without cost to Corps Districts. Corps Districts will be

responsible for funding/developing databases.

Based on experience with DAN-NY and District input, the following concepts will guide

DMSMART development. The initial version will be simple, concentrating on including dredging

site data and expanding the fate models to include the Short Term Fate of Dredged Material

(STFATE) (Schroeder and Palermo 1990, Johnson and Fong 1995) and Long Term Fate of Dredged

Material (LTFATE) (Scheffner et al. 1995) models in addition to the MDFATE model. DMSMART

will be flexible, so that additional models (e.g., some of the Automated Dredging and Disposal

Alternatives Management System (ADDAMS) or DOER models) or other data types can be added

later. In developing requirements for DMSMART, features that the majority of Districts agree are

necessary will be included. However, if a District has a special requirement, the program and

standards should be sufficiently documented so the feature can be added.

The key to maintaining flexibility is to develop standards for data and modeling. Standards will

allow the software to be easily implemented Corps-wide, the program to be software independent,

and allow the Districts to easily contract data collection and database creation. As part of the

DMSMART effort, guidance documents with instructions for electronic formats and standards for

data will be provided. Modeling standards will include methods for handling input and output files.

Additional models may be included in DMSMART based on the following principles. First, a

significant number of Districts must indicate that a specific model will be useful. Second, a model

must not require "in-depth" training for execution. For those models that may be useful to a District

for managing dredging projects, but require WES staff for execution, an attempt will be made to

include the capability to archive and display the model output file. If a District has developed

software or specific applications for dredging project management that can be of general use, an

attempt will be made to include the District development. For example, the Seattle District has

demonstrated output of an ArcView-based application for tracking and displaying sediment

contaminant concentrations. WES expects to use this or a similar application in developing

DMSMART.

Another guiding principle is to continue to be aware of other databases and reporting requirements

related to dredging project management and to allow DMSMART to extract or import data as