=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1747/IT201_ICBO2016
|storemode=property
|title=Environmental Semantics for Sustainable Development in an Interconnected Biosphere
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1747/IT201_ICBO2016.pdf
|volume=Vol-1747
|authors=Pier Luigi Buttigieg,Mark Jensen,Ramona Walls,Christopher Mungall
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icbo/ButtigiegJWM16
}}
==Environmental Semantics for Sustainable Development in an Interconnected Biosphere ==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1747/IT201_ICBO2016.pdf
Environmental semantics for sustainable development
in an interconnected biosphere
Pier Luigi BUTTIGIEG Ramona L WALLS
Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und CyVerse
Meeresforschung University of Arizona
Bremerhaven, Germany Tucson, AZ, USA
pbuttigi@mpi-bremen.de rwalls@cyverse.org
Mark JENSEN Christopher J MUNGALL
University at Buffalo Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories
Buffalo, NY, USA Berkeley, CA, USA
mpjensen@buffalo.edu cjmungall@lbl.gov
Please Note: This is an extended abstract for a 15 domain, the best practices of the OBO Foundry and Library
minute talk during the plenary session. [4] are being leveraged to create the Sustainable Development
Goals Interface Ontology (SDGIO; [5]), in collaboration with
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In this
Abstract— Development unavoidably impacts the ecosystems talk, we will discuss our efforts to represent environmental
constituting Earth’s biosphere, often producing complex outcomes entities in SDGIO through coordination with the Environment
across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The Ontology (ENVO; [6]).
interconnectivity of global ecosystems and their varied responses
to disturbance necessitate great caution when using or
encountering terms such as “sustainable” and “sustainability”.
The Environment Ontology (ENVO; II. REPRESENTING THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT OF
www.environmentontology.org) is coordinating with the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN AN ANTHROPISED BIOSPHERE
Sustainable Development Goals Interface Ontology (SDGIO) to Earth’s anthropised biosphere [7] sets the stage for the
improve semantic representation of environments in the context
of global development. In this talk, we will present progress
realisation of the SDGs. Accounting for and responsibly
towards this goal, emphasising the potential of ecosystem managing the integrity of the planet’s constituent ecosystems
semantics in bridging and seeding new domain ontologies. is central to the global development agenda for 2030 [3].
Clearly representing environmental entities – which are often
Keywords—sustainable development; environment; biosphere;
ontology; semantics
only loosely defined – is key to revealing the interconnectivity
of development and conservation activities with undirected or
I. INTRODUCTION emergent ecosystem processes. With improved environmental
semantics, researchers may better coordinate data and
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; information about the processes through which natural, semi-
[1], [2]) specify a transformative global agenda for natural, and strongly anthropised environmental systems
harmonising anthropocentric development and the regenerate the inputs of and/or remediate and recycle the
preservation of ecosystem integrity across multiple scales. In outputs of human activity. These dynamics, considered at
addressing some of the greatest challenges of our time – different spatiotemporal scales, are at the centre of
including eradicating diverse forms of poverty, hunger, and understanding whether or not a given activity is, in fact,
lack of access to basic services – the agenda articulates the sustainable. The Environment Ontology (ENVO), which
need to prevent degradation of the ecosystems which support represents a broad range of environmental systems, has been
human societies and constitute humanity’s natural heritage adopted and imported into SDGIO to address these issues. Its
[3]. Measuring progress towards the SDGs is complicated by content is being extended to accommodate entities referenced
ambiguity in the terminology used to refer to entities of by the SDGs (Buttigieg et al., in review) and to better
interest in local, national, regional, and international contexts represent entities such as “ecosystem services” and “natural
and the difficulties in revealing their interconnectivity. Hence, capital”. As a motivating example, we will present the
work has begun to create an ontology which will assist challenges of representing the preservation of ecosystem
multiple stakeholders in more clearly associating their efforts, services on a parcel of land: issues with spatial and temporal
data, and knowledge to the wide range of entities participating boundaries, classification of environment types, and human-
in the SDG process. Following the fruitful experience of environment interactions will be explored.
ontologists operating in the biomedical and biological
III. THE ENVIRONMENT ONTOLOGY AS A SEMANTIC STAGING ENVO and SDGIO is creating a semantic layer capable of
GROUND supporting the implementation of the Sustainable
In addition to handling ecosystems, the inclusive nature of Development Agenda. In the near future, we hope to expand
environmental semantics offers a means to accelerate the our sphere of collaboration with other existing or planned
development of semantic resources for sustainable ontologies and implementation partners to represent their
development. Representing the large collection of domains work and enhance their informatics resources.
referenced by the SDGs is a formidable task, which requires REFERENCES
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