Towards a Shared European and National State of the Environment - SoER makes SENSE - LinkedData...

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9/26/09Technical Workshop

NRC IS meeting 23 Feb 2010

SoER makes SENSE

Antonio De Marinis

European Environment Agencyeea.europa.eu

towards a Shared European and National State of the Environment

SOER website

Content provision

SENSE

IScenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3

Manual upload via Plone

SENSE: Automatic content sharing

Why SENSE?

To automatically • fetch, • synchronize, • publish • share

national SOER information and data across Europe and even the entire web

How?

What data format?

RDF/XML

Why RDF/XML?

• widely accepted open standard

• from

• Used for Linked Data and the wider

• Semantic Web initiatives around the world

“The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries”

(World Wide Web Consortium - W3C, 2009)

What is RDF/XML?

• RDF stands for systems as web pages (HTML) stands for humans

• RDF is a standard framework to describe structured data

• With RDF it is possible to share and link raw data across the web

• It enable to browse and query the data, no matter where it is

• Simple and powerful data model

• XML base syntax (RDF is XML)

• Supports XML schema data types

• Express statements about any resource

• Provides formal semantics and provable inference

• Therefore it supports logic programming and reasoning

•

Semantic web “layercake” diagram

What is Linked Data?

“a term used to describe a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF."

LinkedData

EnvDataEEA-Eionet(reportnet)

EnvDataCountry

SENSE

EnvDataEurostat

Our long term vision –

create the web of environmental data

RDF Basic concepts

RDF Model

Subject ObjectPredicate

(property)

sentence: Mr. De Marinis likes Italian wine

“Mr. De Marinis”

“Italian wine”

“likes”

(property)

RDF/XML representation1. <?xml version="1.0"?>

2. <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"

3. xmlns=”http://wine.com/”>

4. <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.eea.europa.eu/staff/MrDeMarinis">

5. <likes>Italian wine</likes>

6. </rdf:Description>

7. </rdf:RDF>

RDF applied to SoER C- SENSE -

SoER C: Class diagram

RDF model exampleSoER sentence: “Water bodies located in Norway are in a

good environmental condition.”

“Water bodies” “Norway”

location

Translates into the following RDF graph:

“good”condition

RDF/XML representation1. <?xml version="1.0"?>

2. <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"

3. xmlns="http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/1.0# ">

4. <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.environment.no/water-bodies">

5. <location>Norway</location>

6. <condition>good</condition>

7. </rdf:Description>

8. </rdf:RDF>

National Story RDF example

Triples of the data model

Several National Stories

Sequentially add all national stories in same RDF feed:• <rdf:RDF xml:lang="en" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-

syntax-ns#" xmlns="http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/1.0#">

• <NationalStory rdf:about="...">

• ...

• </NationalStory>

• <NationalStory rdf:about="...">

• ...

• </NationalStory>

• </rdf:RDF>

SENSE RDF with figures and data

1

2

Figures and data, alternative RDF representation

1

2

1. <Figure rdf:about="http://www.environment.no/vannkvalitet_07.gif">

2. …

3. <dataSource rdf:resource="http://www.environment.no/Maps-and-data/Data/?spraak=EN&amp;dsID=AKUTT"/>

4. </Figure>

5. <DataFile rdf:about="http://www.environment.no/Maps-and-data/Data/?spraak=EN&amp;dsID=AKUTT">

6. <fileName>AKUTT</fileName>

7. <dataURL>http://www.environment.no/Maps-and-data/Data/AKUTT/data.xls</dataURL>

8. <mediaType>application/excel</mediaType>

9. </DataFile>

Geographical coverage and logic deduction

1

2

biogeographical regions like Alpine region or Baltic sea.

• <NationalStory rdf:about="http://www.environment.it/alpine-water-bodies">• <question>What are the state and impacts?</question>• <topic>freshwater</topic>• <keyMessage>Global climate change poses a grave threat to the alpine• hydrological system, altering precipitation, snow-cover patterns and• glaciers, with further effects downstream.</keyMessage>• <pubDate>2009-05-15</pubDate>• <geoCoverage• rdf:resource="http://rdfdata.eionet.europa.eu/article17/bioregions/ALP "

/> • </NationalStory>

Why not Italy, France, Austria etc ?The other geographical coverage can be inferred automatically, deduced by semantic

(logic) rules. We have “linked” the bioregions to country regions.

The same can be done for NUTS code.

Geographical coverage

1

2

<geoCoveragerdf:resource="http://rdfdata.eionet.europa.eu/article17/bioregions/ALP " />

Countries:• spatial country coverage in Reportnet

For trans-boundary assessments:• biogeographical regions like Alpine region or Baltic sea. • International river basin districts• or sub-national regions like NUTS regions

Deduction on topic

1

2

<NationalStory rdf:about="http://www.environment.it/alpine-water-bodies">…<topic>freshwater</topic>

…</NationalStory>

Deduction by Gemet Thesaurus (now in RDF), we get more topics:

• “surface water” (BT)• “flowing water” (NT)• “ice” (NT)• “river water (NT)”

We gain much more knowledge and power by linking data and applying reasoning.

Conclusions

• The SENSE principles: shared SOER information

• How? via semantic web technology

• The potential of Linked Data and RDF

• RDF applied on SOER part C

• Inspiration for future development of the web of environmental data!

Further reading and references• SENSE project intro:

http://svn.eionet.europa.eu/projects/Zope/wiki/SENSE

• SENSE XML/RDF Specification: http://svn.eionet.europa.eu/projects/Zope/wiki/SOERFeedSpec

• The next Web of open, linked data: Tim Berners-Lee on TED http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

• Linked Data http://linkeddata.org/

• Linked Data Tutorial http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/

• RDF Primer http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/

• Semantic web http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

Let's make SENSE!