This project was part of the response to the Brazilian environmental disaster that occurred with the rupture of the Fundão tailings dam in the city of Mariana, in the state of Minas Gerais (MG), on November 5th, 2015. This event discharged 55–62 million m3 of iron ore tailings slurry directly into the Doce River Basin, an important basin in the Southeast of Brazil. The mine slurry filled hydrologic networks along 663.2 km of the Doce River through the states of Minas Gerais (MG) and Espírito Santo (ES) before reaching its estuary, in the city of Linhares (ES).

In response to this disaster, autonomous groups of researchers and governmental (e.g., ANA, CPRM, IBAMA, IGAM, IEMA) or non-governmental agencies (for example, Renova Foundation) began to take actions to evaluate its consequences, producing a large volume of data in different knowledge areas (hydrology, geochemistry, biology, among others). In order to support these activities, it is necessary to make these data available, and to support their integrated use. To do this, one has to deal with data heterogeneity problems, and to avoid wrong comparisons when data is obtained by incompatible techniques or when produced for different purposes according to the interest of each data provider.

The research carried out in the Doce River Project aimed to produce and analyze water quality data of the Doce River Basin as an attempt to answer questions about the water quality in the basin in general, and, more specifically, concerning the impact of the disaster on the affected environment. To enable the integration of heterogeneous data, a reference ontology was developed in the scope of the project to provide a shared conceptualization for these data. An implementation of this ontology using Semantic Web technologies was produced based on the gUFO foundational ontology implementation. The project counted with a team of researchers from the areas of Geochemistry, Aquatic Biodiversity and Computer Science. [See: P. M. C. Campos, “Designing a Network of Reference Ontologies for the Integration of Water Quality Data”, 20019, for a Master’s Thesis developed in the scope of the project.]

See http://purl.org/nemo/doc/doce for ontology implementation documentation and http://purl.org/nemo/doc/gufo for the foundational ontology employed.

Throughout the project, a number of implementations were provided to:

• Extract and transform data from different sources into the ontology A-box (see https://github.com/jpalmeida/integradoce-etl).
• Allow data access in Python, with Jupyter notebooks to exemplify the use of RDFlib in queries relevant to the project (see https://github.com/jpalmeida/integradocepython, the documentation is provided in Portuguese in this case)
• Interact with the data produced via a Web front-end (see https://github.com/jpalmeida/integradoce-frontend and undergraduate report in Portuguese)
• Interact with the data produced in a previous version of the ontology (see  https://github.com/jpalmeida/doce-river-stardog)
• Check the quality of ontologies produced with gUFO (see https://github.com/nemo-ufes/ufo-protege-plugin)

Scientific publications regarding the domain-specific ontologies developed in the project:

2021

• L. A. Santos, “Uma Visão Ontológica de Aspectos Comportamentais e Estruturais da Medição,” Master Thesis, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 2021.
  [Bibtex]

  @mastersthesis{uma_visao_ontologica_de_aspectos_comportamentais_e_estruturais_da_medicao_2021,
  title = {{Uma Visão Ontológica de Aspectos Comportamentais e Estruturais da Medição}},
  author = {Lucas A. Santos},
  institution ={Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo},
  year = {2021}
  }

2020

• P. M. C. Campos, C. C. Reginato, J. P. A. Almeida, Falbo R.A., M. P. Barcellos, G. Guizzardi, and V. E. S. Souza, “Finding reusable structured resources for the integration of environmental research data,” Environmental modelling and software, vol. 133, p. 104813, 2020.
  [Bibtex]

  @article{finding_reusable_structured_resources_for_the_integration_of_environmental_research_data_2020,
  year = {2020},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  author = {Campos, P.M.C. AND Reginato, C.C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Falbo, R.A., AND Barcellos, M.P. AND Guizzardi, G. AND Souza, V.E.S.},
  title = {Finding Reusable Structured Resources for the Integration of Environmental Research Data},
  journal = {Environmental Modelling and Software},
  volume = {133},
  pages = {104813},
  year = {2020},
  issn = {1364-8152},
  doi = {10.1016/j.envsoft.2020.104813},
  url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815219307078}
  }

2019

• P. M. C. Campos, “Designing a Network of Reference Ontologies for the Integration of Water Quality Data,” Master Thesis, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 2019.
  [Bibtex]

  @mastersthesis{designing_a_network_of_reference_ontologies_for_the_integration_of_water_quality_data_2019,
  title = {{Designing a Network of Reference Ontologies for the Integration of Water Quality Data}},
  author = {Patricia Marçal Carnelli Campos},
  institution ={Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo},
  year = {2019}
  }

• P. M. C. Campos, C. C. Reginato, and J. P. A. Almeida, “Towards a core ontology for scientific research activities,” in ER 2019 Workshops FAIR, MREBA, EmpER, MoBiD, OntoCom, and ER Doctoral Symposium Papers, LNCS, v. 11787, 2019, p. 3–12.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{towards_a_core_ontology_for_scientific_research_activities_2019,
  author={Campos, P. M. C. AND Reginato, C. C. AND Almeida, J.P.A.},
  title="Towards a Core Ontology for Scientific Research Activities",
  booktitle={{ER 2019 Workshops FAIR, MREBA, EmpER, MoBiD, OntoCom, and ER Doctoral Symposium Papers, LNCS, v. 11787}},
  year="2019",
  publisher={Springer},
  pages="3--12",
  abstract="The increasing volume and complexity of scientific research data associated with its semantic heterogeneity demands strategies to enable data integrated reuse. This is essential to improve global collaborations, in what has been called e-Science. A way to promote data integration is through the use of ontologies. Ontologies can play the role of a shared conceptualization, providing a common semantic background for data interpretation. In the case of scientific research, particularly empirical research, there are many concepts related to research activities that are general, despite any specific domain in which they may occur. Thus, they can be represented by means of a core ontology. In this paper, we propose the design of a core ontology to deal with research activities (e.g., sampling and measurement). As the concepts used are neutral with respect to different application domains, they can be reused to build ontologies for specific research domains, speeding up the development process. To illustrate this, we present an environmental research ontology developed based on this core ontology. The proposed core ontology is grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), which provides a solid basis for its key elements.",
  isbn="978-3-030-34146-6",
  doi= {10.1007/978-3-030-34146-6_1}
  }

2018

• P. M. C. Campos, C. C. Reginato, J. P. A. Almeida, J. C. Nardi, M. P. Barcellos, R. A. Falbo, and R. S. S. Guizzardi, “Building an Ontology Network to Support Environmental Quality Research: First Steps,” in Proceedings of the XI Seminar on Ontology Research in Brazil and II Doctoral and Masters Consortium on Ontologies, 2018, p. 227–232.
  [Bibtex]

  @inproceedings{building_an_ontology_network_to_support_environmental_quality_research__first_steps_2018,
  title = {{Building an Ontology Network to Support Environmental Quality Research: First Steps}},
  author = {Campos, P. M. C. AND Reginato, C. C. AND Almeida, J.P.A. AND Nardi, J.C. AND Barcellos, M.P. AND Falbo, R. A. AND Guizzardi, R.S.S.},
  booktitle = {{Proceedings of the XI Seminar on Ontology Research in Brazil and II Doctoral and Masters Consortium on Ontologies}},
  pages = {227--232},
  publisher = {{CEUR}},
  year = {2018}
  }