Conceptualizing the impacts of agriculture on water resources: experiences and ontology engineering challenges

Water is no longer considered an unlimited resource. As a matter of fact, many studies have shown a recent increase of water scarcity. By far, the largest demand for water resources comes from agricultural activities. Various researchers from multidisciplinary fields address the impacts of agricultural activities on water resources, as well as the impacts from possible climatic changes. In this context, the Embrapa's research network AgroHidro aims to support integration and information sharing among a range of institutions and researchers. In this paper, we present the first version of a Web Ontology to represent key aspects of this problem. The objective is to provide the basis for computational mechanisms in support of knowledge sharing and recovery, e.g., semantic search, text mining and visualization techniques. The paper also discusses the reuse and integration strategies, limitations, and challenges to be faced in the ontology engineering process.