An appropriate database / record keeping system must be provided (or constituted):
• To hold the data.
• To have data extracted/interpreted in a manner that has meaning. There is no point in collecting data that cannot be successfully accessed.
• To allow it to be interrogated in a way that permits the likely users (owners, regulators, researchers, etc.) to apply the method of interpretation that meets their needs. As most data storage is archived electronically, consideration should also be given to providing secure network access.
• To be easily maintained and amended.
• To have some semi-automatic processing capability that will alert the database owner to take some investigative action if the data contained seems to indicate a problem. There are more than a few examples of a record system holding the data
that would have indicated a potential problem long before it became an issue
if only someone had looked at the data!
• The database / system must be properly documented and backed-up. Accepted archival systems are required for both electronic and paper records.
• The database should hold all the data that passes certain pre-defined quality levels. The quality levels should not be set too high otherwise too many useful data points will be excluded. The disadvantage is that some invalid or unreliable readings will be stored. Therefore, sufficient data points should be stored in the database so that later data analyses can differentiate genuinely high or low values from those readings that are unreliably high or low.
An ongoing budget should be secured to enable monitoring and database maintenance to continue over the full time-scale required by the probable contaminant transport behaviour. If it cannot be ensured, a sustainable “fall-back” programme should be incorporated into the plan.
Modern software systems are readily, and economically, available to provide secure, accessible data storage and retrieval capability. Data entry to these systems is also considerably more user-friendly than in the past. The standardized data format of the Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists (AGS, 2004) is one such system that has the great advantage of being non-proprietary. Thus, data stored in this manner is readily interchangeable between different users. Field data can be collected by “palmtop” (“PDA”) computer and combined with applications developed using open source software (e. g. Walthall & Waterman, 2006; Chandler et al., 2006).
