Desiderata for a spatio-temporal geo-ontology

Abstract

We survey the manifold variety of kinds of phenomena which come within the purview of geography and GI Science, and identify three key desiderata for a fully spatio-temporal geo-ontology which can do justice to those phenomena. Such a geo-ontology must (a) provide suitable forms of representation and manipulation to do justice to the rich network of interconnections between field-based and object-based views of the world; (b) extend the field-based and object-based views, and the forms of representation developed to handle them, into the temporal domain; and (c) provide a means to develop different views of spatio-temporal extents and the phenomena that inhabit them, especially with reference to those phenomena such as storms, floods, and wildfires which seem to present dual aspects as both object-like and process-like. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.