Unification of tsunami-related terminology: Ontology engineering perspective

Abstract

Like many research areas, tsunami research has plenty of related topics that lack unified terminology. Some particular sub-topics may not have enough attention or do not share the same terminology as different views on the phenomenon. This issue can be tackled by an ontology that puts knowledge from different related topics into a formal structure that connects concepts with relationships. This paper proposes the development process of Tsunami-Related Ontology (TRO) that would aid the research in this field. The proposed semi-automatic ontology development methodology applies to any research field and does not require specific algorithms or programming skills to achieve its goal. This paper particularly focuses on three research gaps related to tsunami that are expected to benefit significantly from an ontology: meteorological tsunami, community resilience, and physical vulnerability. For these topics, the created ontology provides a formal taxonomy that links individual concepts to equivalent or related concepts, providing an easy-to-understand overview of the area.