About WLRC

Database Components

The database has two major components i.e non-spatial and spatial data.

1. Non-spatial data Spatial data

The present database system uses a relational model for data storage and retrieval. Using a relational database system, a model is embedded for an application in terms of entities. Each entity corresponds to a single database table. A database table normally has a name and a set of columns, with the actual data content items, such as text and numbers, stored within these columns. The columns in such a system are the attributes of the entities within the data. These data are called non-spatial data that explains about the spatial data. A relational model is developed to relate different tables in the database that stores spatial and non-spatial data simplifies the data storage and retrieval process. The non-spatial data types stored in the database are listed and described in table 2 and 3.

2. Spatial data

Spatial data are data that are optimized to store and query data that are related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. These are typically called geometry or feature. The spatial data types stored in the database are listed and described in table 4. Currently there are several spatial database systems available both open source and commercial. Among which Oracle Spatial, Microsoft SQL Server, this has support for spatial types since version 2008, and PostgreSQL DBMS (database management system) that uses the spatial extension PostGIS to implement the standardized data type geometry and corresponding functions.ESRI has a number of both single-user and multi user geo-databases and Space Base is a real-time spatial database. The WLRC database employed PostgreSQL that uses the spatial extension of PostGIS.

Table 1: Non spatial data included on the database

SN	Dataset	Information contained in the dataset	Data sources	Stations	Available year of the data	Remark
1	Climatic data	Air temperature (max and Min), Soil Temperature (max and Min)	SCRP and NMA	7 SCRP stations and around 800 stations of NMA	For SCRP since 1981 with some gaps and for NMA since 1950`	The data stored for the time being are only SCRP data
	Wind	Wind direction and Strength	,,	,,	,,
2	Rainfall	Amount, Duration, Intensity, inclination,	,,	,,	,,
3	Soil erosion and Sediment	Soil loss in a micro catchment, sediment yield in basin, sub basin and large watershed level		,,	,,
4	River discharge	Runoff in a micro catchment, river discharge in a large catchment and river discharge from basin levels	MoWE	Several Stations (500)	Since 1950’s
5	Demographic	Birth rate, Death rate, Growth rate and Density at Region, Zone and Woreda level	CSA	Woreda (PA) Level	Since 1976	Since 2007 Census Kebele level
	Agricultural Census	Production and productivity of land at household level	CSA	NA	Only 2004	Not yet stored in the database
6	Infrastructure	Road (Asphalt, Gravel, and Earth Roads)	CSA, ERA	NA	Latest (2010)
7	Social Services	Educational centers, Health Centers and Religious Sites, Touristic Sites, National Parks,	CSA, EthioGIS II	NA	Latest (2010)

Table 2: Other datasets incorporated in the database

SN	Program or Project	Documents, data and information types	Owner and source of the data	Data format	Coverage	Remark
	Land Use Studies		MoA			Since 1979-1993
1	Land Use planning Phase one	Agroecology, Soil, natural Resources, Geomorphology	MoA	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	National (1:1,000,000)
	Land Use planning Phase Two	,,		Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	Limited to three sub basins (1:50,000)	Borkena, Hosiana and Bichena
	Land Use planning Phase Three (With ASALP)	,,	MoA	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	National (1:250,000)	Complete data is not available
2	Ethiopian Highland reclamation Study (EHRS)	Soil Erosion hazard, AEZ, Soil Loss Soil formation, Forest cover, Geology	MoA	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	National
3	Woody Biomass	Forest resources, Forage(grassland resources, Degradation, Deforestation, Yield	MoA	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	National
4	Research outputs	PhD, MSc, policy briefs, and research Articles	NCCR	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	Patches of studies
5	River Basin Master Plans	LULC, Agriculture, socio-economics, soils, infrastructure, etc	MoWE	Spatial and Non spatial(Scientific Reports)	Major Basins
6	Photo Database	Landscape Photos taken by different people	Photographer		Different places	For Photo based change analyses

Table 3: Spatial data types and description stored in the database

SN	Dataset	Spatial Layer		Data it stores	Sources	Coverage	Time
1	Administrative	Region	Polygon	Name and area	EthioGIS I		1998
		Zone	Polygon	Name and area	EthioGIS I	National	1998
		Woreda	Polygon	Name, area and population	EthioGIS I	National	1998
		Kebele	Polygon	Name, area and population	EthioGIS II	National	-
2	Infrastructure	Road	Line	Road condition	ERA	National	2011
		Town	Point and Polygon	Name, area and Population	EthioGIS I WLRC	National	2011/12
3	Hydrology	Basin	Polygon	Area and Basin Name	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Sub Basin	Polygon	Area and Sub-basin Name	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Catchment (Micro and Macro)	Polygon	Area and which basin or sub-basin it belongs	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Rivers	Line	River Name and its basin	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
4	Climate	Rainfall Isohyets	Polygon	Average annual Rainfall	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Agro climatic Zone	Polygon	Area and type of ACZ	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
5	Geophysical	Soil	Polygon	Major soil categories	EHRS and Woody Biomass	National	1984/2002
		Geology	Polygon	Geological formations and morphology and	EHRS and Woody Biomass	National	1984/2002
		DEM	Raster	Relief with Altitude	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Contour	Line	Altitude	EthioGIS I and II	National	2011/12
		Agro-ecology	Polygon	Area and type of AEZ	EHRS and Woody Biomass	National	1984/2002
6	Bio-physical	Land use and Land cover	Polygon	LULC types and their area coverage	EHRS and Woody Biomass	National	1984/2002
		Water bodies	Polygon	Name, type, and status	EHRS and Woody Biomass, EthioGIS I and II	National	1984/2002 2011/2012
7	Others	Research and Project outputs	In different formats	Bio-physical and others	Different organizations	Different	Different