PREDICAT: A semantic service-oriented platform for data interoperability and linking in earth observation and disaster prediction

The increasing volume of data generated by earth observation programs such as Copernicus, NOAA, and NASA Earth Data, is overwhelming. Although these programs are very costly, data usage remains limited due to lack of interoperability and data linking. In fact, multi-source and heterogeneous data exploitation could be significantly improved in different domains especially in the natural disaster prediction one. To deal with this issue, we introduce the PREDICAT project that aims at providing a semantic service-oriented platform to PREDIct natural CATastrophes. The PREDICAT platform considers (1) data access based on web service technology; (2) ontology-based interoperability for the environmental monitoring domain; (3) data integration and linking via big data techniques; (4) a prediction approach based on semantic machine learning mechanisms. The focus in this paper is to provide an overview of the PREDICAT platform architecture. A scenario explaining the operation of the platform is presented based on data provided by our collaborators, including the international intergovernmental Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS).