Management of GIS Database and multipurpose customization of computerized models of the contaminated aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems

The experience of dealing with geographical and environmental data requests by different codes used for the assessment of radionuclide contamination and for the identifying the optimal remedial strategies for recovering the contaminated ecosystems conducted to the developing of an extended GIS database. This connects to the geographical features an Object Oriented database (OODB) comprising: population, land use, soil type and characteristics, hydrological networks (topologically defined, together with hydraulic parameters). Two problems occurred during the process: - The Price/Quality balance of the data: was solved using data source issued by profile research Institutes and the data acquiring with variable scale having higher resolution in the nuclear risk zones; - The choice between Vector and Raster GIS data types: vector files were preferred, because these can be easily grid transformed