Environmental processes classes request

[Clarissa-Feio]

Hello,

Chris told me that I might want to ask you do add new classes no the environmental ontology.

I am not sure if these keywords will be relevant for the environmental ontology, as I am looking at things from a perspective on how law regulates human activity in order to protect the environment, and the fact that we need to make sure that our clients comply with the law.

One example of this is water. From our perspective the different types of water keywords are extremely important, as different human activities could have environmental impacts either on ground water pollution, marine water pollution, etc. Environmental law will regulate human activities relating to its impacts on freshwater, or surface water, etc, so we need to have all of those keywords available. I am attaching a screenshot of our water keywords, just in case they are of interest.

Anyway, at the moment I am looking at environmental processes, so here are the areas where the environmental ontology doesn’t cover (in the ontology I need to have these keywords as processes so that I can classify them as environmental impacts).

Pollution - for me the relationship between contamination and pollution is quite important, as I see contamination as being one of the causes of pollution. (This distinction is important for our clients in the manufacturing sector as well). So, in my ontology, I have both a set of pollution keywords and contamination keywords, which will be connected by a causal relationship (see screenshot attached for contamination keywords)

Other pollution related keywords that I don’t see in the environmental ontology:

Acid Rain Fallout / Rainout Atmospheric water pollution Coastal pollution Nutrient pollution Eutrophication Oxygen Depleting Water Pollution

Natural resources - for me the difference between depletion of natural resources and degradation of natural resources is also quite important. The reason why this difference is so important for me is because some human activities can contribute for the degradation of some natural resources, and other human activities can contribute for the depletion of natural resources. I am still not happy with how I am dealing with natural resources, but I am happy to give you screenshots of what I have.

Degradation of the environment related keywords that are not currently in the environmental ontology:

Soil Alkalinisation Sea level rise Ozone layer depletion

Kind regards, Clarissa.

[pbuttigieg]

Many thanks @Clarissa-Feio Very important processes here. This sounds like a good case to create a set of design patterns @cmungall

[tomgulbransen]

Clarissa-Feio, Thanks for advancing your ontology development pertaining to processes, degradation, pollution and contamination. Eager to learn how best to distinguish when stressor presence/levels become causative in the different types of aquatic ecosystems you refer to. For example, nitrogen levels' impact can range from beneficial to harmful depending on salinity and temperature etc. TomG

[Clarissa-Feio]

Dear all,

Thank you so much for your help and enthusiasm.

This is very exciting.

Kind regards, Clarissa.