FLOOD09060

• County: Statewide
• Community: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Statewide River Rehabilitation and Flood Plain Management Needs Inventory
• Date: 2/18/1998
• Prepared For: State of Colorado
• Prepared By: McLaughlin Water Engineers, Ltd.
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

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CHAPTER m

COMPILATION OF NEEDS ASSESSMENT DATABASE

GENERAL DESCRIPI'ION

Once the questionnaires were filled out by the various communities, a method was needed to categorize
and store the information contained in each questionnaire. MicroSoft Access 97 was used because of the
great diversity the program lends to its users, The database was divided into two main parts, communities
and organizations, for each questionnaire sent out. (See Appendix C for a copy of the original
questionnaires distributed.) Even though the two parts are similar overall there were enough differences
to warrant the separation.

Each part contains one table for every major section of the questionnaires. six for communities and five
for organizations. (The question regarding a need for single purpose projects in the community
questionnaire was regarded as a major section because it lacked any relationship to other sections.) There
are essential items required by all data entries, for example, the community, county and organization name.
Each community is then linked to a number allowing Access to keep track of all the information associated
with a particular questionnaire response. Every table has an additional number to distinguish which table
the data came from.

Differences Between Database and Questionnaires
The Needs Assessment database contains more information than what was originally requested in the
questionnaires. Some communities provided maps with their responses which led to the addition of a
yes/no response to indicate that there is a map in the hard copy file. The type of map was also recorded.

Another difference between the database and the questionnaire is that each yes/no response or check box
has an individual description associated with it. For example, the question regarding the amount of stream
erosion, which has three different yes/no responses, had only one line for questionnaire respondents to
indicate length of stream erosion suffered. In the database, reach lengths having erosion are separated for
each yes/no response (e.g. a length for vertical movement, a length for channel meandering, etc.). If a
single length or description was given and more than one box was checked, the length was indicated as the
total length for all three responses.

The final difference, which is seen mostly in the organization part, is the addition of remark boxes
(descriptive responses) for yes/no responses. Many organizations made beneficial comments next to yes/no
responses but the questionnaires did not have indicated lines to write the response. To make the database

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97-060001