SMART Research using Linked Data - Sharing Research Data for Integrated Water Resources Management in the Lower Jordan Valley

In the region of the Lower Jordan River a steadily increasing population has access only to constantly decreasing natural freshwater resources. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) considers social, economical and ecological objectives when deciding over long-term strategies in a study area. IWRM is collaborative and knowledge intensive, but missing operational guidelines and data management challenges hinder decision makers and scientists to make the decision process transparent and research results comparable. In this work, we formalise the IWRM domain in an OWL ontology; use Linked Data and multidimensional modelling based on the RDF Data Cube Vocabulary to build a knowledge base with research data; and present exploratory interfaces on top of integrated IWRM data. From an application of this SMART Knowledge Base approach for Wadi Shueib, Jordan, we identify challenges to make scientists share research data and to model the water resources domain.