Home Ontology

Building an Ontology for The National Map Research Projects

• Goal
• Specialist Workshop
• The Topographic Feature Ontology
• Links to USGS Feature Lists
• Constructing Ontologies from The National Map Vector Databases
• Geographic Features with Indeterminate Boundaries
• Papers and Posters
• Abstracts and Presentations
• Technology
• Spatial Ontology Community of Practice (SOCoP) Collaboration
• Project Team

The goal of the project "Ontology for The National Map" is to specify feature semantics for richer data models. New data models and associated knowledge organization systems for The National Map can translate traditional topographic information into a flexible spatiotemporal knowledge base that can serve many different application areas. Transformation of The National Map database into a comprehensive geographic knowledge base can bring new dimensions to topographic information delivery and revitalize the role of the USGS as the provider of trusted and consistent geographic information and a valuable geospatial integration framework. The USGS Center of Excellence for Geospatial Information Science (CEGIS) conducts research on topographic information, and will play a critical formative role in the development of ontologies, or knowledge bases, for topographic information.

The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) hosted a Specialist Meeting on developing an "Ontology for The National Map" on behalf of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The meeting was held at the Doubletree Hotel, Washington, D.C., on Feb 3-4, 2009. Position papers addressed topics listed below or a related area that would be of interest to developing an ontology for The National Map (http://nationalmap.gov/), the vision of the 21st century topographic map. Some of the challenges in developing an ontology for The National Map are listed below.

Design of a topographic feature ontology

Ontology and semantics of topographic features

Semantic similarity comparison

Ontology and data integration

Ontology and generalization

Ontology and names

Ontology driven information systems

Building an ontology from a spatial database

Interfacing the ontology with existing databases

Ontology and information extraction/query

Presenting the ontology graphically to Internet users

Vector/raster representation and an ontology of features

Implementation of an ontology as a Web application

Revisions of the position papers based on the Specialist Meeting and extended to full papers are in review for publication in Cartographica.

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The evolving standards for the various themes of The National Map and the historic developments of Digital Line Graph-Enhanced (DLG-E), Digital Line Graph-Feature (DLG-F), and National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) formal specifications provide a cohesive basis for a new ontology that can support The National Map. The existing standards must be cast into the new environment of multi-scale representation, near real-time and Web access, and on-demand product generation. This only can be accomplished with a complete ontology of all features at all possible representation scales as the basis for feature and information retrieval from the multiple databases that comprise The National Map. This project will be the initial step to building such a comprehensive ontology and will use current (2008) GIScience methodologies developed in the ontology of geographic information that have evolved during the previous 5 years.

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Links to USGS Feature Lists

Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) Part 2, Spatial Features

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) feature list

USGS Digial Line Graph (DLG) and quadrangle map standards

Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Framework data standards development

The National Map – Vector Data Layers (Transportation, Structures, Government Units, Hydrography)

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A geospatial database contains rich data and information for modeling geographic phenomena in the physical world, and describing the existence of geographic phenomena in spatial, temporal, and thematic dimensions. The goal is to reveal rich semantic and non-semantic relations of geographic features that are implicitly imbedded in geospatial database design by reverse-engineering approaches. The resulting semantic models are named database-based, application-based, or access ontologies. Database-based ontologies provide complementary information for upper, domain, and feature ontologies and enhance geographic ontologies in the bottom-up direction. Database-based ontologies also are critical to an ontology-enhanced GIS in varied application development, including data integration and retrieval.

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Specification of ontologies of features implies specification of objects. Objects are assumed to have complete and closed boundaries; however, a common characteristic of geographic features is indeterminate or ambiguous boundaries. Ambiguous boundaries create a challenge for topographic feature ontology development, and the difficulties of delimiting many topographic features likely are the reason many have remained only implicitly represented in geospatial databases. The goal of feature definition should not be to have one ultimate boundary but rather to allow the possibility of many boundaries. Just as features can have multiple names, they also can have multiple boundary representations. The existence of multiple boundaries for features in a database is a logical expectation and outcome of observations by different sensors at different scales and times, and under different interpretation and processing.

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Varanka, D., 2009, Landscape Features, Technology Codes, and Semantics in U.S. National Topographic Mapping Databases: The International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems & Web Services (GEOWS), Cancun, Mexico, February 1-7, 2009.

Varanka, D., 2007, Ontological Foundations of Transportation Data for the National Map (USA), in XXIII International Cartographic Conference Proceedings 4-10, August 2007, Moscow, Russia, 13 p. (CD)Wei, M., 2009, Enabling semantic power of geographic data, position paper to Ontology for The National Map Workshop, Feb. 3-4, 2009.

Wei, M., 2009, Enabling semantic power of geographic data, position paper to Ontology for The National Map Workshop, Feb. 3-4, 2009.

Varanka, D., 2008, National Topographic Modeling, Ontology-Driven Geographic Information in the Context of The National Map: First International Workshop on Information Semantics and its Implications for Geographical Analysis (ISGA '08) at GIScience 2008, the 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Park City, Utah, September 23, 2008.

Zhao, T., Zhang, C., Wei, M., and Peng, Z., 2008, Ontology-based geospatial data query and integration: 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, September 23-26, Park City, Utah.

Wei, M., Zhao, T., Varanka, D., and Usery, E.L., 2008, A conceptual design towards semantic geospatial data access: poster presented at the 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Science.

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Wei, M., 2009, Extracting a semantic model from a geospatial database, submit to 2009 Annual meeting of Association of American Geographers, March 22-27, 2009.

Varanka, D., 2009, Landscape Features, Technology Codes, and Semantics in U.S. National Topographic Mapping Databases: The International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems & Web Services (GEOWS), Cancun, Mexico, February 1-7, 2009.

Varanka, D., 2008, Ontology Research for The National Map: Spatial Ontology Community of Practice Workshop, MITRE, McLean, Virginia, October 17, 2008, accessed January 6, 2009.

Varanka, D., 2008, National Topographic Modeling, Ontology-Driven Geographic Information in the Context of The National Map [abs.]: First International Workshop on Information Semantics and its Implications for Geographical Analysis (ISGA '08) at GIScience 2008, the 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Park City, Utah, September 23, 2008.

Varanka, D. and Wei, M., 2008, Topographic Feature Inventories for National Mapping Ontology [abs.]: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Boston, Massachusetts, April, 2008.

Wei, M. and Varanka, D., 2008, Constructing geographical ontologies for integrating The National Map data, presented at 2008 Annual meeting of Association of American Geographers, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 15-19, 2008.

Varanka, D., 2007, Ontological Foundations of Transportation Data for The National Map (USA) [abs.]: XXIII International Cartographic Conference abstracts with programs, August 4-10, 2007, Moscow, Russia, 161 p.

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Carter, J., 2009, Demo of National Hydrography Dataset Upstream/Downstream Reach Retrieval.

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Data contribution for semantic technology demonstration at U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Tech Days, June 3-5, 2009.

Program committee for Terra Cognita, geospatial ontology workshop at the International Semantic Web Conference 2009

This sample Oracle database has National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) for 6 watersheds in geographically diverse areas of the U.S.

This .owl file has classes, definitions, and namespaces for hydrography data derived from the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), USGS Geonames, and the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (STDS).

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Dr. Dalia Varanka

Jonathan Carter

Eric Wolf