Adapting the U.S. National Hydrography Dataset to Linked Open Data

A controlled vocabulary for the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) of the United States was developed as Linked Open Data (LOD). The vocabulary has two main parts: a glossary and a set of triples reflecting the NHD data model as it is organized in geographic information systems (GIS). The glossary consists of a feature type label and a comment consisting of a definition that is linked to a hydrographic feature type standard. The ontology of the data model consists of classes and properties that group and relate sets of individual features. The objective of the project is to draw on the glossary and the “triplified” data model to build formal semantics for a basic form of NHD as LOD. Modifications were made primarily to the specification of feature types for the data.