Database Design for Environmental Sustainability

The importance of learning how to manage a database becomes more evident as the course advances.  Databases are a really powerful tool and can be associated with basically any field that has to manage and analyze data. Throughout the course we built up skills on basic database management:

1.     Language: It is important to familiarize with the database language and different terms in order to manage databases. In the following table you can find some of the most basic terms and concepts in database language.

2.  UML Diagrams: UML diagrams allow us to map out the tables and relationships of the database. It allows us to create a logical design that will be transferred in to a database management system.

3.     Establishing Relationships between entities: When we have our entities identified it is necessary to establish the multiple associations we will have in our database. This process is done when designing the UML diagram. We  can also establish business rules that will determine the cardinality of the relationships.

4.     Queries: Queries are a good tool that will   allow us to create commands to search for specific information within our database.

5.     Forms: A form is an excellent feature to allow clients to browse and filter the data easily. It  also allows you to restrict the access to manage the information to protect the data integrity.

6.     Reports: A report display a summary of a query in an easy way to understand. This can be useful when presenting the information to a client or person not familiar with database management forms or queries.

For further development of a database many other advanced features can be implemented. I would be interested in learning a bit more about basic programming to be able to make the search box and drop box feature interactive with the queries.

Beginning to Understand Databases

Basic Concepts and Database Language

Our daily life is filled with databases. We interact with them continuously without being aware of it. Databases don't have to be complicated and hard to understand. They are a really efficient way to store and manage data. Relational databases have their own language and there are three basic concepts that we should understand when beginning to work with databases:  

• Entity: An entity is a person,place thing or event of which we are capturing data.
• Attributes:  are the different categories of data we are capturing of our entity.
• Relationship: In relational databases entities will associate one to another or in case of a urary relationship it will relate to itself.

As I mentioned before databases are all around us. People collect data on a daily basis. The concepts mentioned above are a key to introduce that data in to a database. In the environmental studies field there is a massive collection of data and it is necessary to keep track of it. If we think about sustainability we know that we have to understand systems and think how each ecosystem relates to one another. After studying the language of databases I can know begin to see our ecosystems as entities that have relationships with each other. I can picture many uses for a database in environmental studies. The use of databases in this field is not something new. There are many already existing databases that keep track of pollution, water management, green house gases updates and many other entities in different ecosystems. I also found the global environmental database which was established by the Center for Global  Environmental Research (CGER) at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES). This database is an incredible resource that stores data and several research results in environmental related investigations and topics.

The use of databases is useful in many ways and fields. There is always a need to store and manage data, whether it is in our business or in a research project databases provide an excellent to tool to manage our own data.  Relational databases are really efficient because its many features and principles guarantee that our data will be secure, and available. When using a database management system there are many rules that will keep the integrity of our stored information.

In my personal interest I would like to learn if there is a way to link the use of a database management system with the Geographic Information System (GIS)?

If you are interested in databases you should ask yourself How do you think you can relate database use to your own life or field of study?

Data Modeling in Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Data modeling is how we represent data in an application.
Data in databases can be represented by:

• Relational model
• XML
• Database design model. 

To create a design model we can implement a higher level model which can be a Unified Modeling Language (UML). The data modeling subset of the UML is based on 5 concepts:


1-Classes: In UML the class consists of class name, attributes and methods. There is a primary key assigned to the attributes and the method is normally dropped.

2-Associations: are the relationships between objects of two classes. Inside the associations we have multiplicity. The multiplicity of associations explains how many objects of one class can be related to an object of another class. The types of multiplicity associations are:

• One-to-one: Each object on each class is related to at most one object on the other class.
• Many-to-one: Each object in class 1 is related to at most one object in the class 2, but each object in class 2 can be related to several objects in class 1.
• Many-to-many: There are no relationships on the relationships, multiple objects of each class can be associated to several objects of another class.
• Complete: Every object must participate in 1 relationship.

3-Association classes: are the relationships between the objects of two classes with attributes on relationships.Inside the association classes we can also find self associations which refer to associations of class with itself.

4-Sub classes: are also known as specialization and they derive form the super classes. They can be incomplete, complete exclusive or overlapping. 

5-Composition and Aggregation: Composition is the term used when objects of one class belong  to another class. Aggregation indicates when an object of one class can belong or not to another class.

The definition of relations on databases is a key factor in managing data. There can be multiple associations that determine how the different tables relate one to another. Database design is a really valuable skill, as a student in a sustainability/ environmental studies field I lacked any background in computer science and business. I hope the above description will provide you a simple insight in to basic database relationships.

Things to consider...

What happens when we have massive amounts of data? How can we determine the multiple associations when we have too much information, Is there a tool that can help us link the tables?

Green Products Database

Green Products Database 

Important Tables to be considered.

One of the biggest issues when trying to purchase green products is the lack of a clear and accessible description of the green labels and features of the item. The home depot green guide doesn't display an environmental product profile in an easy and accessible location for the costumers to read. The information is hard to find and is only available after opening several links that display the items description. In my opinion the makes it harder for costumers to make an effective green product purchase. The product content is essential to provide the green product profile of the items. It would be important to detail the carbon foot print of the products, and the environmental impact (positive or negative) that the purchase of the product will cause. This will help create environmental responsibility and create a real change in the purchasing behavior. We could also provide a table where we can specify the post use of the product: is it recyclable, compost able or reusable... Including this columns in the relational data will help customers purchase green products more effectively.

Alternative Tools to achieve a more effective green product purchase.

Should we include a section were costumers or the Chatham community can become familiarized with green labels, logos and certifications?
Chatham is well known for its strong lead in sustainability and green practices, regardless of this not all of the community is familiarized with green terminology, labels and certifications. Should we provide a place where they can become familiarized with the terms? Perhaps not as a table in the database but within the Chatham webpage?

Should we add a table where we include the benefits of purchasing green products?
It was mentioned that the different offices and departments could aim to be green certified and it would be helpful to identify the products that will help them achieve the certification. This table could be associated with the green ratings of the products. If the purchase of greener products increases it will benefit and facilitate the achievement of a green certification for the office or department.