Semantic Observation Integration

Although the integration of sensor-based information into analysis and decision making has been a research topic for many years, semantic interoperability has not yet been reached. The advent of user-generated content for the geospatial domain, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), makes it even more difficult to establish formal semantic integration systems. This paper proposes a novel approach of to integrating conventional sensor information and VGI, which is exploited in the context of detecting forest fires. In contrast to common logic-based semantic descriptions, we present a formal system using algebraic specifications as an inherent solution to unambiguously describe the processing steps from natural phenomena to value-added information. A generic ontology about of observations is extended and profiled for forest fire detection in order to illustrate how the sensing process, and possibly required transformations between heterogeneous sensing systems, can directly be represented as mathematical functions and grouped into abstract data types. We particu-larly discuss the required ontological commitments and a possible generalization.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat