Environmental Science Domain Ontology

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

flow "EnvironmentalScienceDomainOntology" v1.0 {
  ontology:
    id: "environmental-science-domain-ontology"
    parent: "scientific-domains"
    purpose: "Represent environmental systems, measurements, pressures, impacts and evidence-backed relationships across environmental science."

  types:
    EnvironmentalSystem: {id: string, kind: enum[atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, ecosystem, other], region: string?}
    EnvironmentalEntity: {id: string, kind: enum[organism, habitat, pollutant, resource, material, process, other], label: string}
    Pressure: {id: string, kind: enum[emission, land_use, extraction, disturbance, climate_driver, other], origin: string?}
    Impact: {id: string, affected_entity: string, effect: string, severity: number?, timeframe: string?}
    Observation: {id: string, observed_entity: string, timestamp: datetime, location: string?, method: string, provenance: string}
    Measurement: {value: number, unit: string, uncertainty: number?, detection_limit: number?, reference_method: string?}
    Relationship: {id: string, subject: string, predicate: string, object: string, context: string?, confidence: number, evidence: string[]}

  predicates:
    part_of(entity: EnvironmentalEntity, system: EnvironmentalSystem)
    interacts_with(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)
    affects(pressure: Pressure, target: EnvironmentalEntity)
    contributes_to(pressure: Pressure, impact: Impact)
    observed_in(observation: Observation, system: EnvironmentalSystem)
    measured_by(entity: EnvironmentalEntity, observation: Observation)
    depends_on(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)
    associated_with(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)

  constraints:
    - "Relationship endpoints must resolve to declared, typed entities."
    - "Confidence values must lie within [0, 1]."
    - "Measurements must carry units, methods and uncertainty when available."
    - "Spatial extent, observation time and sampling method must be retained."
    - "Correlation or temporal precedence alone does not establish causation."
    - "Do not assume environmental interactions are symmetric or transitive."
    - "Distinguish measured impacts from modelled projections and hypotheses."
    - "Preserve source licensing, data provenance and quality flags."

  inference:
    rule system_membership:
      if part_of(e,s) and valid(e) and valid(s)
      then candidate_system_member(e,s)
      confidence: "bounded by membership evidence"
    rule supported_impact:
      if affects(p,e) and measured_by(e,o) and valid(o)
      then evidence_link(p,e,o)
      confidence: "does not establish causal effect without an identification strategy"
    rule dependency_path:
      if depends_on(a,b) and depends_on(b,c) and compatible_context(a,b,c)
      then indirect_dependency(a,c)
      confidence: "propagate uncertainty; never assert direct dependency"

  SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
    - "Align environmental terminology using versioned scientific vocabularies."
    - "Distinguish exact equivalence, close match, broader concept and related concept."
    - "Preserve location, temporal scale, measurement units and operational definitions."

  CONFIDENCE:
    range: [0,1]
    factors: [sampling_quality, measurement_uncertainty, source_reliability, spatial_coverage, temporal_relevance, model_assumptions, replication]
    policy: "Record calibration basis and do not increase confidence solely through chained inference."

  VALIDATION:
    - "Validate entity types, units, measurement methods and temporal-spatial coverage."
    - "Flag missing evidence, incompatible sampling scales and conflicting measurements."
    - "Retain competing explanations where causal attribution is unresolved."
    - "Check provenance and distinguish observations from derived outputs."

  FLOW_HASH:
    algorithm: "SHA-256"
    input: "canonicalised ontology version, typed assertions, 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, compare, reconcile, recompute_inferences, publish]
    rollback: true

  AI_CONSUMPTION:
    representation: "typed environmental knowledge graph with evidence-backed relationships"
    outputs: [entity_links, environmental_relations, measurements, impact_hypotheses, uncertainty_annotations, provenance_records]
    safeguards: [no_unsupported_causal_claims, preserve_units_and_context, distinguish_observation_from_projection, retain_uncertainty]
}

END FLOW ALGEBRA