The EPISECC Ontology model : spatio-temporal ontology for disaster management

The EPISECC project’s investigation revealed that 70% of tools used by first responders during disaster management reach physical and syntactical interoperabilit y and only 30% are covering semantic interoperabili ty. To improve information sharing, the EPISECC project developed a conce pt of Common Information Space (CIS) including three semantic structures: taxonomy, semantic repository and ontol gy model. As there is no reference ontology for di saster or emergency management, the EPISECC project team developed a spat io-temporal ontology for disaster management, model ling common operational picture for the first responders. A two steps approach is applied: the first step models t he application knowledge and the second step links concepts with reference o tologies. The ontology backbone is a subset of the EPISECC Taxonomy representing the application knowledge. GeoSPARQL, W 3C Time and DOLCE-Lite ontologies are referenced. Repr esenting dynamic features ask for a new concept with propert ies varying in both space and time. Thus, the conce pt of “spatio-temporal part” is introduced in the ontology. The conceptual model is formalised in the Ontology Web Language ( OWL) schema and validated by the competency questions based on the EPISECC scenario. Future research should tackle a new paradigm in disaster management: including ad-hoc participants and trustworthiness of their data.