Definition
An organized collection of related data and information.
Databases have been used for many hundreds of years, but the advent of the computer provided a mechanism for cost effective and efficient databases. They exist as a shared collection of logically related data and a description of the data, designed to meet the information needs of an organization. They are structured for efficient management, addition, editing, storage, and retrieval of data and information.
Data modeling is the process of defining and analyzing data requirements needed to support the design process stages: conceptual, logical, and physical representation of the model (Rasmussen 1995; Nayembil and Baker 2015).
Data models are logical, structured, representations of the things that need to be described in databases. The data structure is represented by entities, entity properties called attributes and the relationships between entities. An entityis a logically grouping of information about a “real...
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The author thanks Martin Nayembil and Carl Watson for their help, ideas, and reviews. Published with the permission of the Executive Director of the British Geological Survey.
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Entwisle, D.C. (2018). Databases. In: Bobrowsky, P.T., Marker, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73568-9_80
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73568-9_80
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