Sustainability Domain Ontology

FLOW ALGEBRA
TITLE: Sustainability Domain Ontology
DOMAIN: Domain Ontologies / Earth & Environmental Domains / Sustainability
SOURCE: https://kirethresearch.org/booksai-core/ontologies/domain-ontologies/earth-environmental-domains/sustainability-domain-ontology.html
VERSION: 1.0
AUTHORS: Mark Anthony Higgins — Sky (Recursive AI)
STATUS: Companion formalisation; source-page specification not independently verified.

flow "SustainabilityDomainOntology" v1.0 {
  ontology:
    id: "sustainability-domain-ontology"
    parent: "earth-environmental-domains"
    purpose: "Represent sustainability goals, resource flows, impacts, interventions and evidence across environmental, social and economic dimensions."

  types:
    System: {id: string, kind: string, boundary: string, geography: string?, time_horizon: string?}
    Stakeholder: {id: string, role: string, affected_group: string?}
    Resource: {id: string, kind: enum[energy, water, material, land, biodiversity, other], unit: string?}
    ResourceFlow: {id: string, resource: string, source: string, destination: string, quantity: Quantity?, period: string?}
    Quantity: {value: number, unit: string, uncertainty: number?}
    Impact: {id: string, dimension: enum[environmental, social, economic], category: string, magnitude: Quantity?, context: string?}
    Intervention: {id: string, description: string, target_system: string, implementation_period: string?}
    Indicator: {id: string, name: string, method: string, unit: string, baseline: number?, target: number?}
    Assessment: {id: string, method: enum[life_cycle_assessment, material_flow_analysis, risk_assessment, multi_criteria, other], boundary: string, assumptions: string[], provenance: string}
    Evidence: {id: string, source: string, observed_at: datetime?, quality: string?, uncertainty: number?}
    Relationship: {id: string, subject: string, predicate: string, object: string, confidence: number, evidence: string[], context: string?}

  predicates:
    consumes(system: System, resource: Resource)
    produces(system: System, resource: Resource)
    transfers(flow: ResourceFlow, resource: Resource)
    generates_impact(system: System, impact: Impact)
    mitigates(intervention: Intervention, impact: Impact)
    affects(impact: Impact, stakeholder: Stakeholder)
    measured_by(impact: Impact, indicator: Indicator)
    evaluated_by(system: System, assessment: Assessment)
    supported_by(relationship: Relationship, evidence: Evidence)
    depends_on(system: System, resource: Resource)

  constraints:
    - "All relationship endpoints must resolve to declared typed entities."
    - "Confidence must lie within [0, 1]."
    - "Quantities require compatible units, defined temporal coverage and uncertainty where available."
    - "Assessments must disclose system boundaries, functional units, assumptions and allocation methods when applicable."
    - "Do not equate environmental, social and economic performance without an explicit weighting or decision model."
    - "Do not infer causal impact from correlation or temporal sequence alone."
    - "Avoid double counting resource flows and life-cycle impacts across overlapping boundaries."
    - "A stated target is not evidence of achieved performance."
    - "Claims of net-zero, circularity or sustainability require defined scope and independently checkable evidence."

  inference:
    rule resource_dependency:
      if consumes(s,r) and verified_resource_flow(s,r)
      then depends_on(s,r)
      confidence: "bounded by flow evidence and system boundary"
    rule impact_assessment:
      if generates_impact(s,i) and measured_by(i,k) and valid_indicator(k)
      then assessable_impact(s,i,k)
      confidence: "retain measurement uncertainty and assessment assumptions"
    rule intervention_effect:
      if mitigates(x,i) and validated_comparison(x,i)
      then evidence_for_mitigation(x,i)
      confidence: "context-dependent; no automatic generalisation"
    rule upstream_propagation:
      if depends_on(a,r) and upstream_impact(r,i) and compatible_boundaries(a,r,i)
      then potential_embodied_impact(a,i)
      confidence: "requires allocation and provenance; never assert exact magnitude without calculation"

  SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
    - "Map resource, impact and indicator terms to versioned reference vocabularies."
    - "Distinguish conceptual similarity from identity and measured equivalence."
    - "Preserve system boundary, functional unit, geography, period and methodology."

  CONFIDENCE:
    range: [0,1]
    factors: [data_quality, measurement_uncertainty, source_reliability, model_assumptions, boundary_completeness, independent_replication]
    policy: "Do not increase confidence solely by chaining assertions or repeating dependent sources."

  VALIDATION:
    - "Check typed entities, identifiers, units, dates, system boundaries and provenance."
    - "Check mass and energy accounting where physically applicable."
    - "Flag incompatible functional units, missing baselines and unverified sustainability claims."
    - "Keep conflicting evidence and alternative scenarios traceable."

  FLOW_HASH:
    algorithm: "SHA-256"
    input: "canonicalised ontology version, typed assertions, assessment boundaries, rules and provenance"
    note: "Compute hash at execution; no hash value is claimed here."

  UPDATE_MODEL:
    strategy: "versioned, provenance-preserving incremental update"
    steps: [ingest, normalise, validate, reconcile_boundaries, compare, recompute_inferences, publish]
    rollback: true

  AI_CONSUMPTION:
    representation: "typed sustainability knowledge graph with evidence-backed relationships"
    outputs: [entity_links, resource_flows, impact_relations, indicator_records, uncertainty_annotations, provenance_records]
    safeguards: [no_unsupported_causal_claims, no_unverified_green_claims, preserve_units_boundaries_and_time, protect_sensitive_stakeholder_data]
}

END FLOW ALGEBRA