[tdwg-tag] Referring to GBIF distribution map in RDF

Tue May 11 11:22:29 CEST 2010

Hi all,

Last year we started something like this, as Roger pointed out. We called it Named Area Repository. The Named Area Repository (NAR) is a datastore to keep geometries of areas that are used for describing species distributions. If a source specify that a certain species is present in Spain, NAR can be used to retrieve the geometry for Spain. There are multiple References imported into the Named Area Repository, like ISO2 Country Names, TDWG areas, etc.

In that way we could then match Darwin core taxonomy files with their corresponding geometries as long as they tell us what "Named Area Standard" they were using for describing the distribution.

You can get a list of supported references at:

http://sdr.gbif.org/amfphp/json.php/NARServices.getReferences

Then to get the areas within a reference you can do this:

http://sdr.gbif.org/amfphp/json.php/NARServices.getReferenceCodes/iso3

Some more documentation is at:

http://sdr.gbif.org/api.php

In TDWG we discussed the idea of RDFying all this, as it makes lot of sense, but we did not have the time, the users or the experience to get into it, but I would really support the idea.

We are using geoJson nowadays for all geometry data transfers as it is much easier later to parse and reuse.

Markus and Tim has a lot to say about this too as we kind of came up to the idea all together.

Cheers.

On May 11, 2010, at 11:11 AM, Roderic Page wrote:

> Dear Roger,
> 
> 
> On 11 May 2010, at 09:42, Roger Hyam wrote:
> 
>> Hi Rod,
>> 
>> What we were talking about the other days (and indeed in the  
>> corridors of last years TDWG) is the need for a polygon repository.  
>> It would be really nice is someone (GBIF?) ran a geoserver that you  
>> could register polygons with and once registered they were given a  
>> nice URI and became semantically linkable with their metadata in  
>> RDF. This would obviously need long term commitment. I'd do it if I  
>> had funding....
>> 
>> Within PESI we were talking about it in terms of the TDWG regions  
>> and possibly extending them to maritime regions but really there are  
>> endless lists of polygons - like the IUCN protected areas or how  
>> about the oil spill effected areas etc etc.
> 
> This would be useful, it could also contain polygons of species  
> distributions (say from RedList).
> 
>> 
>> This probably doesn't answer your question!
>> 
>> Another approach would be to have a literal property with a value  
>> that is a Well-known text of the distribution.
>> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-known_text
>> 
>> This is the approach taken by DwC.
>> 
>> You could use the DwC property or make one up such as  
>> rod:hasFootprint="POLYGON ((10 20, 11 20, 11 21, 10 21, 10 20))"
> 
> That's what I'm using at the moment, dwc:footprintWKT (as well as  
> another vocabulary to describe the points). Just toggle the display at http://bioguid.info/csquare/ 
> , or use a linked data client to get the RDF.
> 
>> 
>> You can use multipoint and other ways to describe the distribution  
>> data with well known text.
>> 
>> I am sure there are semantic and geospatial people who would object  
>> to almost any approach!
> 
> Yep. One thing I like about c-squares is that the URI is computable  
> from a pair of co-ordinates. Given a lat,long pair you can compute the  
> c-square. This makes it possible to do basic search and indexing on  
> the URI, plus you don't need to search a service to construct the URI.
> 
> For larger, more complex polygons I guess we'd loose this (lots of  
> ways to represent a polygon, fewer chances of identity or containment).
> 
> Might be fun to think about this, as I'd like to mash up GBIF squares,  
> GenBank points, and IUCN ploygons...
> 
> Regards
> 
> Rod
> 
>> 
>> Good luck
>> 
>> Roger
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 10 May 2010, at 16:11, Roderic Page wrote:
>> 
>>> Dear All,
>>> 
>>> I'm interested in referring to a GBIF distribution map in RDF, and am
>>> having fun figuring out how to do it. One way is to use a c-squares-
>>> based URI, see http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2010/05/referring-to-one-degree-s
>>> quare-in-rdf.html (http://tinyurl.com/33ba4kt).
>>> 
>>> The idea is that each 1° × 1° square in a GBIF map has it's own c-
>>> squares-based URI, e.g. http://bioguid.info/csquare:3317:364 , and
>>> hence a distribution would be a list of these URIs (perhaps with the
>>> number of records from each square).
>>> 
>>> Any thoughts on this approach, and whether we have an existing
>>> vocabulary to describe these relationships?
>>> 
>>> Regards
>>> 
>>> Rod
>>> 
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>>> Roderic Page
>>> Professor of Taxonomy
>>> DEEB, FBLS
>>> Graham Kerr Building
>>> University of Glasgow
>>> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>>> 
>>> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>>> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
>>> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
>>> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
>>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
>>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>>> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>>> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tdwg-tag mailing list
>>> tdwg-tag at lists.tdwg.org
>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag
>> 
>> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> DEEB, FBLS
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
> 
> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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