Observational/hydrographic data of the South Atlantic Ocean published as LOD

Abstract

This article describes the publication of occurrences of Southern Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina (Linnaeus, 1758) as Linked Open Data in two environments (marine and coastal). The data constitutes hydrographic measurements of instrumented animals and observation data collected during censuses between 1990 and 2017. The data scheme is based on the previously developed ontology BiGe-Onto and the new version of the Semantic Sensor Network ontology (SSN). We introduce the network of ontologies used to organize the data and the transformation process to publish the dataset. In the use case, we develop an application to access and analyze the dataset. The linked open dataset and the related visualization tool turned data into a resource that can be located by the international community and thus increase the commitment to its sustainability. The data, coming from Península Valdés (UNESCO World Heritage), is available for interdisciplinary studies of management and conservation of marine and coastal protected areas which demand reliable and updated data.