Request for Feedback and Suggestions on a vocabulary that extends geo into an "Area" with a radius in meters and uses the new ietf.org geo URI

There was an earlier discussion on the pedantic list about how to markup a
geo:Point with an error measure.

The biodiversity informatics community has a similar problem with how to
annotate a species observation with some measure of extent plus error.

In addition to the error from the GPS reading itself, there are also a large
number of records where the extent is 50 - 200  or more meters.

Some have georeferenced observations to the center of a Canadian Provence,
which makes it appear as if that was the exact point that the species was
observed.

To address this, I have created the following vocabulary.

http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/dwc_area.owl

<http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/dwc_area.owl>OntDoc
http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/dwc_area_doc/index.html

It extends the geo vocabulary with the predicate *dwc_area:radius* in
meters.

It adds the class *dwc_area:Area*.

The *Area* can be used with the proposed ietf.org standard for 'geo' URI
described here. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5870

I am not wedded to this exact vocabulary, and think there are probably other
groups that could use something similar.

What I would like is something that is able to be widely used and
understood. (Assuming people find it useful)

It could be moved to some other URI that makes sense.

One advantage of this proposed vocabulary, is that it allows you to create
"Areas" like the one below: (Most important parts are in *bold*)

(From
RDF http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9.rdf

HTML
http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9.html

*<dwc_area:Area rdf:about="geo:44.86528100,-87.23147800;u=10">*
<dcterms:title>44.86528100, -87.23147800 Radius 10 meters</dcterms:title>
<dcterms:isPartOf rdf:resource="
http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ontology/void#this"/>
<dcterms:identifier>geo:44.86528100,-87.23147800;u=10</dcterms:identifier>
<dcterms:created>2010-10-28T00:00:00-0500</dcterms:created>
<dcterms:modified>2011-01-08T15:53:17-0600</dcterms:modified>
*<geo:lat>44.86528100</geo:lat>*
*<geo:long>-87.23147800</geo:long>*
*<dwc_area:radius>10</dwc_area:radius>*
<txn:elevation>186.54</txn:elevation>
<txn:continent>North America</txn:continent>
<txn:countryCode>US</txn:countryCode>
<txn:country>United States</txn:country>
<txn:stateProvince>Wisconsin</txn:stateProvince>
<txn:county>Door</txn:county>
<txn:localityText>Town of Sevastopol</txn:localityText>
<txn:locationName>Shivering Sands Natural Area Woods</txn:locationName>
<txn:areaHasOccurrence rdf:resource="
http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9#Occurrence
"/>
<txn:areaHasObservedSpeciesConcept rdf:resource="
http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/ICmLC#Species"/>
<txn:areaHasIndividual rdf:resource="
http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9#Individual
"/>
<!-- There is some redundancy between the literals above and the statement
below. It should be possible to infer them based on the areaWithFeature
listed below. This redundancy may be fixed in future examples
-->
<txn:areaInStateProvince rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/5279468/"/>
<dwc_area:areaWithInFeature rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/5250768/
"/>
*<wdrs:describedby rdf:resource="
http://ocs.taxonconcept.org/ocs/f522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9.rdf"/>*
</dwc_area:Area>

Another data set might have the the soil or climate for that *Area*, which
could be attached via LOD.

These seem to work via URIburner

URIburner bit,ly http://bit.ly/hubPkm    (
http://uriburner.com/describe/?url=http%3A%2F%2Focs.taxonconcept.org%2Focs%2Ff522444a-2dd9-400e-be59-47213ef38cb9%23Occurrence&sid=9849&urilookup=1
)

The "Area" itself via URIburner bit.ly http://bit.ly/e3lABG (
http://uriburner.com/describe/?url=geo%3A44.86528100%2C-87.23147800%3Bu%3D10&sid=9849
)

For these to work well, semantic web tools would need to understand the
proposed ietf.org standard.

Adoption of something like this would allow very simple efficient statements
like

<species> *wasObserved* <*geo:44.86528100,-87.23147800;u=10> .*
*
*
and have it clearly interpreted as mappable geo "area".
*
*
I would like feedback and suggestions about this idea and vocabulary.

If it is not something that others are interested in, I might incorporate it
into my txn.owl ontology.

Respectfully,

- Pete
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
TaxonConcept Knowledge Base <http://www.taxonconcept.org/> / GeoSpecies
Knowledge Base <http://lod.geospecies.org/>
About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
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