Chukchi Sea environmental data management in a relational database

Abstract

Environmental data hold important information regarding humanity’s past, present, and future, and are managed in various ways. The database structure most commonly used in contemporary applications is the relational database. Its usage in the scientific world for managing environmental data is not as popular as in businesses enterprises. Attention is caught by the diverse nature and rapidly growing volume of environmental data that has been increasing substantially in recent. Environmental data for the Chukchi Sea, with its embedded potential oil resources, have become important for characterizing the physical, chemical, and biological environment. Substantive data have been collected recently by researchers from the Chukchi Sea Offshore Monitoring in the Drilling Area: Chemical and Benthos (COMIDA CAB) project. A modified Observations Data Model was employed for storing, retrieving, visualizing and sharing data. Throughout the project-based study, the processes of environmental data heterogeneity reconciliation and relational database model modification and implementation were carried out. Data were transformed into shareable information, which improves data interoperability between different software applications (e.g. ArcGIS and SQL server). The results confirm the feasibility and extendibility of employing relational databases for environmental data management.