12 Annex 5: Guidance on database set-up
Setting up a database for soil description and classification according to WRB is not a simple task due to often conflicting requirements regarding issues like
- Data evaluation aims and needs
- Data reusability
- Data quality
- Data and system security
- Performance of database operations
- Experience of database administrators and users
and last but not least, the complex data structure necessary to cover parameters with their auxiliary data and the complexity of WRB soil name syntax.
The single-user one-project data collection can be done in a spreadsheet approach, which is unsuitable for multi-user information systems that need to maintain data security for decades. Introducing WRB 2022 into an existing soil or even land information system asks for different solutions than a newly set-up single-aim database. Even if we consider the most widespread relational database approach, not all of the database management systems provide any logical operation and further possibilities foreseen in the Structured Query Language (SQL), and they differ largely in performance and the use of additional programming.
The WRB homepage provides guidance and practice examples for database solutions suited to the fourth edition of WRB.