The KnowWhereGraph Ontology

TL;DR

The paper introduces the KnowWhereGraph ontology, a schema for a large geospatial knowledge graph that integrates diverse environmental, demographic, and health data to support applications in sustainability, disaster response, and food security.

Contribution

It presents the design, development methodology, and implementation details of the comprehensive ontology underlying the KnowWhereGraph knowledge graph.

Findings

Provides a detailed schema for a large geospatial knowledge graph

Demonstrates applications in disaster response and sustainability

Enables complex queries through a public SPARQL endpoint

Abstract

KnowWhereGraph is one of the largest fully publicly available geospatial knowledge graphs. It includes data from 30 layers on natural hazards (e.g., hurricanes, wildfires), climate variables (e.g., air temperature, precipitation), soil properties, crop and land-cover types, demographics, and human health, various place and region identifiers, among other themes. These have been leveraged through the graph by a variety of applications to address challenges in food security and agricultural supply chains; sustainability related to soil conservation practices and farm labor; and delivery of emergency humanitarian aid following a disaster. In this paper, we introduce the ontology that acts as the schema for KnowWhereGraph. This broad overview provides insight into the requirements and design specifications for the graph and its schema, including the development methodology (modular ontology modeling) and the resources utilized to implement, materialize, and deploy KnowWhereGraph with its end-user interfaces and public query SPARQL endpoint.