Heterogeneous Data Integration Using Web of Data Technologies

The Coordinated Online Information Network (COIN) is a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) which provides an online network of resources to share, use and integrate information of geographic locations in North Canada. COIN incorporates semantic web technology that integrates, publishes and visualizes time series water data allowing users to access a multitude of datasets in order to compare the data and draw conclusions. COIN utilizes a number of standards from OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) and W3C (Resource Description Framework, RDF, Web Ontology Language OWL, SPARQL query language for RDF) and GeoSPARQL for geospatial query). COIN benefits from generic ontologies transforming data into semantics, enriching data sets and making the data available and interoperable via WFS and WMS standards. These principles facilitate publication and exchange of data across the web, increasing transparency and interpretability. Through modernized data submission and retrieval we hope to break down the silos of data, allowing users to visualize time series water quality and hydrometric data from multiple sources to increase knowledge in relationship to impacts on Yukon water.