The need for a comprehensive database is well recognized as a fundamental source of information in every professional area. The development of a database for the study of factors affecting deep ocean hydrocarbon production and transportation involves a wide range of interdisciplinary subjects. Deep ocean is defined as water depths ranging from 1000 to 3000 meters in this report.
There are several existing major general databases containing more than a million related items under a great variety of topics. Items for a specific topic are not grouped together and hence not readily available for the user. Therefore it becomes imperative to have highly specialized databases that would permit the acquisition of the necessary information in a manageable form.
The developed specialized bibliographic databases contain information located under different headings and present the information under those particular headings chronologically. Subjects include oil spills of various origins; geological hazards; naturally occurring hydrocarbon seeps, fates and effects of oil spills, major results of pertinent engineering, physical, chemical, ecological, geophysical studies, and satellite oceanographic research.
A microcomputer program was written in dBase IV language to maintain these databases. The program can process stored information, add data, delete obsolete and redundant data, protect the databases from unauthorized users, and report the retrieved information. The developed database system is called DOHPT, an acronym for Deep Ocean Hydrocarbon Production and Transportation. It can be used either as a single or multi-user system, and can be run in either Microsoft’s DOS (3.0 and higher) or Windows (3.1) environment. The program has been developed in a modular form to facilitate its maintenance in the future.
The DOHPT system has a Master database that contains all the records. There are fourteen specialized databases that can be automatically generated from the MASTER database by using the unique acronym assigned to each record. The overall system has built-in error traps that protect the system from accepting incomplete information. Several tests were conducted on the DOHPT system and the results have confirmed that the system is consistent, reliable, fast, and offers database security at all times. A user’s manual detailing the operation of the system is available for users.
