Development of Semantic-Web Based Forest Resources Database

Abstract

There are some forest resources (such as Trees, Shrubs, and Water bodies) in the university main campus. These resources are used for various purposes ranging from teaching, researches medicinal and domestic purposes and among many others. However, there is no record of official documentation on them. Thus, this study aims to provide a semantic-web based database system for efficient management of forest resources. We adopted the W3C semantic web framework in the design and development of this work. Specifically, we focused on the layers 1 to 5 of the framework. The layers include; Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL), Extensible Markup Language (XML), User Interface). The Uschold’s and Kings’ method was applied in creating the ontology. The implementation process was carried out by populating the database with the Taxonomies of the Trees on University of Energy and Natural Resources (U.E.N.R) campus by means of creating an Ontology File using protégé. Some of the basic information that we provided by the proposed semantic web database include trees, their scientific name, geographical coordinate, physical location, medicinal value and other important data. We performed alpha test by involving six senior forest science students who used the application, evaluated it and came out with a good result which is shown in the chapter four of this documentation.