DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A REAL TIME GPS NETWORK FOR THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California, in collaboration with the Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center (SOPAC) at University of California, San Diego, has undertaken the design and implementation of a 30-station real time GPS network (RTN). MWDRTN is currently in the final field installation stage (first phase) and the initial field-testing phase. The network is designed for use by MWD surveyors and engineers for construction projects, pipeline locations, mapping, GIS studies and projects, deformation studies (including an existing dam deformation system at Diamond Valley Lake) and various other positional needs within our service area (5200 square miles of Southern California). MWDRTN utilizes continuous GPS (CGPS) sites that were installed (1995 to 2002) by the Southern California Integrated GPS Network for seismic and crustal motion research and several newly installed (2004) sites from Earthscope’s Plate Boundary Observatory project. Some of the SCIGN stations were previously converted to real-time operations, with the raw 1 Hz data recorded at SOPAC for earthquake monitoring. Each of the approximately 20 CGPS sites chosen for the network (scattered across both Riverside and San Bernardin