Analysis of obstruction reason of urban sewer using spatial association rules

Sewerage network is an important part of municipal infrastructure for a city. Obstruction of sewer causes street flooding and affects people's daily life directly. To investigate reasons why some sewage pipes are blocked frequently in Kunming, China, we employ spatial analysis and data mining technology to analyze the data on the basis of a municipal sewerage geographic information system of the city. In the GIS, all of map layers and attribute tables are organized and saved in a relational database with Geodatabase model. First, we combined SQL attribute query with spatial location query to find out the sewage pipes that are blocked frequently. Then, we carried out buffer analysis and intersect analysis on the layers of the frequently-blocked pipes and buildings along the streets to extract buildings that are close to these frequently-blocked pipes. Joining the buildings in the buffer scope and the frequently-blocked pipes forms a big table prepared for spatial data mining. We used Apriori algorithm to mine spatial association rules from the data in the big table in order to search implicit reasons of obstruction of the pipes. The results from data mining indicate that strong spatial and non-spatial associate rules exist between the obstruction and restaurants in the buildings, as well as attribute slopes and diameters of these sewage pipes.