Exploring ontologies for semantic interoperability of data in emergency response

Emergency response is a complex activity involving many actors and heterogeneous spatial data. Two of the major challenges are the integration and extraction of these data and their transmission to emergency management actors. Although significant progress has been made regarding the systemic and syntactic heterogeneity of data in this context, semantic heterogeneity remains insufficiently addressed. Here, we discuss the possibility of applying the ontology to resolve semantic heterogeneity in emergency response. We propose a concept for a solution to the semantic interoperability problem in emergency management using an ontology by presenting a case study.