Title: Designing a relational database for tracking and analysis of atmospheric deposition of mercury and trace metals in the Pensacola (Florida) Bay Watershed

Authors: Sikha Bagui; Jessie Brown; Jane Caffrey; Subhash Bagui

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA ' Department of Computer Science, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA ' Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA ' Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA

Abstract: The need to track and analyse the atmospheric deposition of mercury and trace metals in the Pensacola (Florida) Bay Watershed in recent years has resulted in the need for a data management system that will allow data to be efficiently stored, checked for errors, manipulated, retrieved for analysis and shared within the research community. In this paper, we describe a relational database that was developed as a data management tool to address the needs of those maintaining and using atmospheric deposition of mercury and trace metal data in the Pensacola Bay Watershed area. We present the overall design of the database and show useful queries that can be used to clean and maintain the integrity of the data, perform calculations on the data, join and union tables and retrieve the data for presentation and analysis.

Keywords: relational databases; normalised databases; mercury; trace metals; Pensacola Bay; watersheds; Florida; USA; United States; database design; atmospheric deposition; deposition tracking; deposition analysis; atmosphere; data management; data storage; data checking; data errors; data manipulation; data retrieval; data analysis; data sharing; research communities; useful queries; data integrity; data cleaning; calculations; join tables; union tables; data presentation; sustainable society; sustainability; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSOC.2012.047280

International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2012 Vol.4 No.3, pp.240 - 265

Published online: 31 Dec 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article