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Representing Geospatial Concepts: Activities or Entities?

Representing Geospatial Concepts: Activities or Entities?

Sumit Sen
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 27
ISBN13: 9781466603271|ISBN10: 1466603275|EISBN13: 9781466603288
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0327-1.ch006
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MLA

Sen, Sumit. "Representing Geospatial Concepts: Activities or Entities?." Universal Ontology of Geographic Space: Semantic Enrichment for Spatial Data, edited by Tomaž Podobnikar and Marjan Čeh, IGI Global, 2012, pp. 124-150. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-0327-1.ch006

APA

Sen, S. (2012). Representing Geospatial Concepts: Activities or Entities?. In T. Podobnikar & M. Čeh (Eds.), Universal Ontology of Geographic Space: Semantic Enrichment for Spatial Data (pp. 124-150). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-0327-1.ch006

Chicago

Sen, Sumit. "Representing Geospatial Concepts: Activities or Entities?." In Universal Ontology of Geographic Space: Semantic Enrichment for Spatial Data, edited by Tomaž Podobnikar and Marjan Čeh, 124-150. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-0327-1.ch006

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Abstract

Knowledge representation of geospatial entities is dependent on the ability to share their structural properties along with their functional properties, which define their usage for human-society. However, geospatial ontologies have mainly relied on taxonomy-based and mereology-based ontologies. While structural properties of entities such as shape, topography, and orientation are considered important tools for geospatial ontologies, existence of structural properties are not sufficient conditions for the existence of functional properties. Contrastingly, a parallel approach assumes independent existence of function-based concept hierarchies and builds on the premise that human activities associated to any given geospatial entity are essential for specification of the entity concept itself. This chapter compares two diverging approaches based on cases drawn from physical geography, transportation, and hydrology. The differences in core concepts and tools are discussed in relation to universal ontologies of geographic space. It is argued that function representation in geospatial ontologies, in combination with structure-based concepts of geospatial entities, is both necessary and challenging.

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