Ontological Analysis of Observations and Measurements

Geographic information is based on observations or measurements. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has developed an implementation specification for observations and measurements (O&M). It specifies precisely how to encode information. Yet, the O&M conceptual model does not specify precisely which real-world entities are denoted by the specified information objects. We provide formal semantics for the central O&M terms by aligning them to the foundational ontology DOLCE. The alignment to a foundational ontology restricts the possible interpretations of the central elements in the O&M model and establishes explicit relations between categories of real world entities and classes of information objects. These relations are essential for assessing semantic interoperability between geospatial information sources.