Ontologies for the Integration of Air Quality Models and 3D City Models

In the perspective of a sustainable urban planning, it is necessary to investigate cities in a holistic way and to accept surprises in the response of urban environments to a particular set of strategies. For example, the process of inner-city densification may limit air pollution, carbon emissions, and energy use through reduced transportation; on the other hand, the resulting street canyons could lead to local levels of pollution that could be higher than in a low-density urban setting. The holistic approach to sustainable urban planning implies using different models in an integrated way that is capable of simulating the urban system. As the interconnection of such models is not a trivial task, one of the key elements that may be applied is the description of the urban geometric properties in an “interoperable” way. Focusing on air quality as one of the most pronounced urban problems, the geometric aspects of a city may be described by objects such as those defined in CityGML, so that an appropriate air quality model can be applied for estimating the quality of the urban air on the basis of atmospheric flow and chemistry equations. It is generally admitted that an ontology-based approach can provide a generic and robust way to interconnect different models. However, a direct approach, that consists in establishing correspondences between concepts, is not sufficient in the present situation. One has to take into account, among other things, the computations involved in the correspondences between concepts. In this paper we first present theoretical background and motivations for the interconnection of 3D city models and other models related to sustainable development and urban planning. Then we present a practical experiment based on the interconnection of CityGML with an air quality model. Our approach is based on the creation of an ontology of air quality models and on the extension of an ontology of urban planning process (OUPP) that acts as an ontology mediator.