California Department
of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) had to deal
with a large number of databases from commercial
pesticide vendors, in order to understand
which pesticides were sold in what quantities
in a given watershed. However, these databases
had no common fields. The department and
David
Evans and Associates had given up trying
to solve the problem of extracting any useful
information from the databases, and gave
the project to GHS hoping to get 25% of
the records to relate to DPR's master list
of pesticides.
The Solution:
GHS' objective was
to take the existing incompatible data sources
and unite them into a comprehensive, usable
database.
The Implementation:
GHS analyzed the needs
of the agency and developed a plan to pull
only pertinent data from the databases.
The databases had no common fields, so GHS
had to create algorithms and methodologies
to make the various databases relate to
DPR's master list of pesticides.
The Results:
This project has been
completed, with greater success than DPR
had dared hope — GHS' methodologies
managed to relate over 95% of the records.
GHS returned the data in one database and
a lengthy report to the agency.
