Proposal of ontology for environmental impact assessment: An application with knowledge mobilization

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) analyses the effects of human activity, ecosystem integrity and the quality of the environmental services that can be provided by them. This analysis must be done prior to project execution in order to have a preventive nature. The application of new technologies in EIA needs an adequate structure of the knowledge, so a lot of problems appear because depending of the country, different terminologies are used. This paper describes a proposal of ontology for EIA to establish a conceptual framework and the building process. In addition, we have developed a friendly web interface in order to provide easy access to the knowledge and the possibility to suggest changes in the ontology to environmental experts. The objectives are gathering and providing the EIA terminology and facilitating structuring and the development of EIA methodologies. Finally, the paper describes how the ontology can be used in EIA applications with knowledge mobilization.