An Ontology of Soil Properties and Processes.

Abstract

The ontology mainly describes soil properties and processes, as well as how they affect each other. For example, the strength of soil is influenced by the water content of it. The ontology is created manually and written in OWL 2 Web Ontology Language Manchester Syntax. It contains 592 concepts and 2243 relation statements (OWL logical axioms). The concepts and relation statements are created based on the knowledge of domain experts, the SWEET ontology developed by NASA, English dictionaries and a textbook on soil physics (Principles of Soil Physics, by Rattan Lal and Manoj K. Shukla, 2004). The ontology can be viewed using an ontology editor (e.g. Protégé). Description logic reasoners (e.g. Pellet) can be used to reason about relation statements in the ontology. The soil properties and processes described in the ontology have agricultural, engineering and environmental applications, including asset maintenance