An Environmental Monitoring System (EMS) requires the integration of several software packages to support decisions involving the characterization and cleanup of contaminated waterways, soil and groundwater. The software tools are normally designed to be operated independently and neglect to emphasize data exchange between applications. Site data is typically stored and managed in a database management system (DBMS) and processed by specialized software tools. A data visualization system (DVS) is commonly used for imaging the raw and processed data. Lack of integration between software packages decreases the functionality of the EMS and limits the productivity of the environmental engineer using the system. An interface between the DBMS and the DVS is proposed that would allow users to interactively query and view data stored in the database while viewing processed images in the DVS. Tasks are outlined to satisfy the following objectives: (1) enable the exchange of data between the DBMS and the DVS in response to user queries, (2) enable the DVS to display data retrieved from the database, (3) develop an easy to use interface tailored for environmental site characterization, and (4) represent the site data in a format compliant with a standard that specifically supports environmental data management. ESEA will work with engineers at Lawrence for LBL's Environmental Restoration Program for testing. The completion of the prototype interface will serve to demonstrate the potential of this technology to the field of environmental data management. Anticipated
Benefits: Commercial applications in fields that require the analysis of complex data will benefit from the increased functionality and productivity resulting from integrating a database with a data visualization system and developing a virtual environment in which users navigate through a multi-dimensional database and visually select regions for analysis. Data quality control will improve in environmental monitoring systems by enabling a database to manage all data involved in a site analysis.
