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Ontology-Based Geospatial Data Integration

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of GIS

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Synonyms

Conflation; Database integration; Heterogeneity; Information integration; Semantic information integration;

Definition

Information integration is the combination of different types of information in a framework so that it can be queried, retrieved, and manipulated. This integration is usually done through an interface that acts as the integrator of information originating from different places. For integration to be efficient and to deliver the kind of information that the user is expecting, it is necessary to have an agreement on the meaning of the information. In a broader scope, it is necessary to reach an agreement about the meaning of the entities of the geographic world.

In order for information sharing to happen among different communities in a effective and meaningful way some preconditions are necessary. The concepts that people have about the real world must be explicitly formalized; such an explicit formalization of mental models is called an ontology. Ontology is...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, 307E IST Building, 16802-6823, University Park, PA, USA

    Frederico Fonseca

Authors
  1. Frederico Fonseca
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frederico Fonseca .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Shashi Shekhar

  2. Rutgers Business School, Newark, New Jersey, USA

    Hui Xiong

  3. The University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

    Xun Zhou

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Fonseca, F. (2016). Ontology-Based Geospatial Data Integration. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H., Zhou, X. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23519-6_917-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23519-6_917-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23519-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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