Managing Complex Knowledge in Sustainable Planning: A Semantic-Based Model for Multiagent Water-Related Concepts
Mauro Patano and
Domenico Camarda ()
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Mauro Patano: Department of Engineering for Innovation, Università del Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Domenico Camarda: Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Construction and Chemistry (DICATECh), Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy
Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-17
Abstract:
The concepts of green infrastructures, nature-based solutions and ecosystem services are today considered an integral part of the broader theme of the urban bioregion, with an intrinsic character of complexity. It is certainly difficult to structure bioregional processes in a balanced and sustainable way, able to keep local energy production and consumption cycles closed. It is a complex issue of knowledge bases, and problems are increased by the participatory dimension of environmental planning. In fact, when rational planning models have failed in the face of prominent individual needs and environmental complexity, a path has emerged towards the inclusion of multiple citizens’ and stakeholders’ knowledge. The cognitive structure of the plans has thus changed from systems of exclusively expert, formal knowledge to systems of diffused, multi-agent knowledge. This has involved richness but also significant problems in understanding and managing knowledge bases. In this complexity, there are some common peculiarities when it comes to socio-environmental systems. A common feature of the reference domains of ecosystem services, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures is the water resource. A management model of hydrological data, which are structurally relevant and cross-sectoral in environmental planning actions, could represent a flagship initiative. The used approach could be conveyed to more complex and extensive areas of the environmental domain in a perspective of sustainable planning. The present paper is part of a research work oriented toward handling complex environmental subjects, such as green infrastructures, nature-based solutions or ecosystem services, with a knowledge modelling approach. This approach is based on semantic extensions, elaborated form the concept of semantic web, to allow shared interpretations of knowledge coming from different languages and scientific domains. It is also based on using applied ontologies, elaborated from the concept of ontology-based classification, to support a structured organization of knowledge contents. The main research objective is therefore to investigate about a knowledge management system with semantic extensions, populated with hydrological knowledge contents, as well as to propose a preliminary functional architecture. A simple ontology of data is extracted, aiming at clarifying and improving inter-domain communication, so as to enhance a common semantic understanding in a complex environmental system.
Keywords: sustainable planning; bioregion; knowledge management; ontology; decision support system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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