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A geo-ontology-based approach to decision-making in emergency management of meteorological disasters

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Abstract

Ontology as a kind of method for knowledge representation is able to provide semantic integration for decision support in emergency management activities of meteorological disasters. We examine a meteorological disaster system as composed of four components: disastrous meteorological events, hazard-inducing environments, hazard-bearing bodies, and emergency management. The geospatial characteristics of these components can be represented with geographical ontology (geo-ontology). In this paper, we propose an ontology representation of domain knowledge of a meteorological disaster system descending from an adapted geospatial foundation ontology, designed to formally conceptualize the domain terms and establish relationships between those concepts. The class hierarchy and relationships of the proposed ontology are implemented finally at top level, domain level/task level, and application level. The potential application of the ontology is illustrated with a case study of prediction of secondary disasters and evacuation decision of a typhoon event. The multi-level ontology model can provide semantic support for before-, during-, after-event emergency management activities such as risk assessment, resource preparedness, and emergency response where the formed concepts and their relationships can be incorporated into reasoning sentences of these decision processes. Furthermore, the ontology model is realized with a universally used intermediate language OWL, which enables it to be used in popular environments. This work will underlie the semantic integration among human beings, between heterogeneous systems and between human beings and systems, enable spatial semantic reasoning, and will be useful in guiding advanced decision support in emergency management of meteorological disasters.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91224004), the Project in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (Grant Nos. 2015BAK10B01, 2015BAK12B03), and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Public Safety.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Bei**g, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Shaobo Zhong, Min Zhu & Quanyi Huang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Map** and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Zhixiang Fang

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  1. Shaobo Zhong
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  2. Zhixiang Fang
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  3. Min Zhu
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  4. Quanyi Huang
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Correspondence to Shaobo Zhong.

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Zhong, S., Fang, Z., Zhu, M. et al. A geo-ontology-based approach to decision-making in emergency management of meteorological disasters. Nat Hazards 89, 531–554 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2979-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2979-z

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