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?