Design of National Geotechnical Database of Iran

The immense amount of geotechnical data, stored as paper files, is normally hard to handle. In recent years the electronic storage of these data has become more popular. As the storage of geotechnical data in a national level is not feasible in a single database, a decentralized system of electronically handling of geotechnical data is designed for Iran. In this system, the data is stored by different organizations and companies and a virtual center is responsible for leading the users to the proper data. In this respect, first a proper geotechnical data dictionary were defined and then a data model was designed for these data. Although the design and construction of a virtual data centre is more complicated but it can search large amount of data and give much better results in a shorter time. The Geotechnical Databank of Iran is under construction in the National Geosciences Database of Iran.