Data Management in Environmental Information Systems

In this paper, we discuss two techniques to facilitate the management of large amounts of data in environmental information systems. For the representation of environmental data we propose a concept called spatial database views. Here, an environmental database only contains atomic objects at the largest resolution available. Molecular objects (such as cities) are represented by means of database views. For efficient spatial access to the data we present a concept termed oversize shelves. Oversize shelves facilitate the handling of spatial databases with great variance in object sizes. Environmental databases often have this property because states and buildings, for example, may often be represented in the same database.