HYDROLOGIC INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM. USERS' GUIDE.

A computerized system for storage, retrieval and routine processing of hydrologic data has been developed at North Carolina State University. The system is known as HISARS (Hydrologic Information Storage and Retrieval System). The system is running on the IBM 3081 computer at the Triangle Universities Computation Center, and can be used at any of the remote terminals scattered around the state. Data are stored on magnetic disk packs. By making use of an operating system feature known as the indexed sequential access method together with direct access capabilities of the PL/1 language, HISARS can retrieve any one of approximately 600,000 records directly. This makes it possible to determine weather or streamflow characteristics at any location and at any time for which data are available. It is also possible to compare different locations at the same time and to process records through time at a single location.