Ontologies for the Design of Ecosystems
Luigi Ceccaroni, Luis Oliva · Advances in geospatial technologies book series · 2014
Environmental regulations require that land development decisions have to be accompanied by clear, accountable decision-making processes to communicate to the possible public repercussions of development. The suitability mapping approach is widely adopted to fill this need. However, in typical applications of suitability mapping, the dynamics and interrelatedness of ecosystems’ structure and processes are often overlooked. Environmental assessment procedures require scientists and designers to join forces, and the demand for shared concepts and semantic language is growing. Better ways of interpreting and incorporating ecological principles, especially those that emphasize the probabilistic, dynamic nature of nature, into ecosystem design and planning are needed. This chapter presents guidelines and experiences about the modeling and implementation of utility ontologies for the design of ecosystems, together with a case study. Utility ontologies are knowledge representations that include general concepts that most services need to use to represent spatial and temporal data.