An Evaluation of Geo-Ontology Representation Languages for Supporting Web Retrieval of Geographical Information

Abstract

The internet is the single largest information resource in the world. It is, however, not being used to is full potential. Currently most the information is written using syntactical machine readable languages such as HTML. These languages are limited in that they are only intended for human consumption. To fully unlock the potential of such a vast resource of information, we need to make the information not only machine readable but machine-understandable. In order to gain machine understanding we need semantic languages which are able to define meaning to the information being stored. Agents (human or machine) could then use this information in variety of different ways. A large amount of geographical information is currently being stored and delivered over the internet. Internet providers such as the Ordnance Survey are realizing the potential and are currently offering their data in GML format. Geographic digital libraries, such as the ADL, are being established. There is, however, the need to realize the potential of semantically enriching the geographic information to provide more automated and intelligent ways of managing and retrieving the data over the web. In February 2001 the semantic web initiative was launched by W3C (W3C, 2001) for the semantic representation of data on the Web. Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, is quoted as saying `The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation'. In order for the semantic web to function, computers need access to structured information and inference rules. Key to this is the use of ontologies. An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization, which provides the structured vocabulary a..