The HIP Ontology: A Formal Framework To Support Disaster Risk Reduction and Management: a formal framework to support disaster risk reduction and management

Open data initiatives and knowledge graphs, in synergy, have contributed to an increasing volume of disaster-related data in the Semantic Web. Synthesizing and enriching these data is critical to support all aspects of data-driven disaster risk reduction and management. A standard template that coherently defines, maps, and classifies the wide range of hazards to which communities are exposed is a key input for this task. The UNDRR-ISC Hazard Information Profiles (HIPs) provide evidence-informed standardization of hazard nomenclature and definitions and a “science-backed” classification. Unfortunately, they are not in a machine-readable format. This paper develops the HIP Ontology as its FAIR counterpart in RDF format that allows its utilization for the greater alignment and consistency of disaster data and systems within and across sectors. Moreover, since HIPs are developed through extensive and rigorous scientific consultation, the HIP Ontology will provide an important layer of data standardization, strengthening the data ecosystem for policy-making and risk management at the global, regional, and national levels. In addition, we also present the Disaster Event Ontology, which provides a schema of key concepts and relationships to link observations and spatiotemporal representations of disaster data with specific hazard types in the HIP Ontology. The two ontologies together will enhance interoperability, integration, and comprehension of disaster datasets within knowledge graphs.