Semantics in environmental search systems

In this article we sketch three different and complementary, semantics-enabled approaches to search for structured and unstructured environmental data and information. The SUI system is a search broker using ontology-based metadata and background knowledge for query interpretation, query dispatching, and mapping between different systems. The HIPPOLYTOS system also employs ontology-based metadata over query templates for accessing structured relational data in a data warehouse, and ontological background knowledge for query relaxation. The KOIOS system also addresses relational data, but realizes a schema-agnostic search approach that derives distributional semantics from database content in order to better interpret user queries.