IMPROVING DATA ACCESSIBILITY USING A RELATIONAL DATABASE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE DATASETS

Traditional methodologies for environmental investigations have involved separate data acquisition, entry, manipulation, analysis, and display. Data compilation and management often carry significant time and financial implications for most environmental projects. Recent advancements in computing technology increase the ability to work with large amounts of data simultaneously. Analyzing larger datasets is more efficient because procedures that need to be repeated for each set of data can be performed for all data sets at one time. Evaluating data as a body may reveal trends and interactions not obvious when they are considered on a smaller scale. Furthermore, the ability to trend over time and to visualize spatially within Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allows data analysis to be completed efficiently. These contemporary computer processes have collectively become known as Environmental Management Information Systems (EMIS).

Geographic Environmental Management System (GEMS©) was developed as an EMIS tool for managing dynamic environmental datasets that contain all geographic and scientific information of a project concurrently. GEMS consists of a relational database used to acquire, store, query, trend, and visualize datasets using a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Developed and run within Microsoft Access©, GEMS is easily manipulated and customized for project-specific parameters.

Successful applications of GEMS include trending of geochemical data, three dimensional lithologic and geochemical modeling in multiple GIS, and graphical presentation of data for the airport management, petroleum, mining, and municipal water supply industries. In applicable cases, GEMS permits integrated historic and current data into a single manageable database for the first time. Current applications of GEMS integrate state-of-the-art sensor technology for real-time, web-based data acquisition and visualization.