Title of the Study: Development of a Database on Climate and Climate Change

related Studies

Investigator(s): B.R.S.B. Basnayake and G. Gunasekera

Scientific background and scope/objectives of the study:

Under the Centre for Climate Change Studies (CCCS), studies on climate and climate change related studies are undertaken. It becomes necessary to check what studies have been done when fresh studies are to be funded. This database will help the scientists in the preparation of the relevant bibliography for their studies.

The objective of the project is to set up a comprehensive database on studies on Climate and Climate Change done on Sri Lanakan data. The database once constructed will be freely available to all scientists working on Climate and Climate Change, nationally.

Experimental Method:

Collection of data for the study:

Author, title and journal of the studies done on climate and climate change were collected through

· Committee members of the Technical Advisory committee (TAC) of the CCCS.

· Research Institutes such as TRI, RRI, CRI etc.

· University Departments such as Geography, Agriculture etc.

· Database at National Science Foundation (NSF) and CARP

· Personal contacts with scientists

Software:

The database was set up with the software WINSIS, which has universal acceptance for library data structures and is used widely in the research community in Sri Lanka. The database has an ability to transfer into other formats such as DBase, FoxPro and Access.This is for convenience of users who may not have WINSIS installed on their computer.

Structure of the Database :

The following information was considered the minimum requirement for a subject database:

· Author

· Title

· Journal

· Location

· Abstract (If available)

Results Obtained:

Nearly 600 entries on the climate and climate change related studies have been entered into the database.

Conclusions:

WINSIS software has been used to make this database, which has a universal acceptance for library data and is widely used in Sri Lanka. The database when completed has an ability to transfer to other formats such as DBase, FoxPro and Access. This is for the convenience of users who may not have WINSIS installed on their computers. It is hoped to make this database available in the web sites of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Meteorology.

Home