System and methods for creating a geospatial network model in a client environment are disclosed. The system residing on a client device receives Geographic Information System (GIS) data for a distribution network, which includes spatial information and non-spatial information (e.g., attributes) relating to features in the distribution network, from a remote GIS database. The system uses the spatial information in the GIS data to construct an undirected graph that is represented by a set of adjacency relationships between the features and utilizes the non-spatial information to traverse the undirected graph in order to construct a directed graph that is represented as a set of directed adjacency relationships between the features. The system stores the data structure corresponding to the directed graph in the form of an array or hashtable in the client device's cache memory for use in performing network analyses such as tracing analysis without accessing the GIS database.