Environmental Relationship Ontology

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

flow "EnvironmentalRelationshipOntology" v1.0 {
  ontology:
    id: "environmental-relationship-ontology"
    parent: "scientific-relationships"
    purpose: "Represent evidence-backed relationships between environmental systems, processes, pressures, measurements and outcomes."

  types:
    EnvironmentalEntity: {id: string, class: enum[ecosystem, habitat, species_population, atmosphere, water_body, soil, landform, pollutant, resource, human_activity, other], name: string}
    EnvironmentalProcess: {id: string, kind: string, spatial_extent: string?, time_interval: string?}
    EnvironmentalObservation: {id: string, observed_at: datetime, location: string?, method: string, provenance: string, quality_flag: string?}
    Quantity: {value: number, unit: string, uncertainty: number?, detection_limit: number?}
    Pressure: {id: string, kind: enum[emission, extraction, land_use_change, pollution, climate_forcing, disturbance, other], provenance: string}
    Relationship: {id: string, subject: string, predicate: string, object: string, spatial_context: string?, temporal_context: string?, confidence: number, evidence: string[]}

  predicates:
    part_of(entity: EnvironmentalEntity, system: EnvironmentalEntity)
    interacts_with(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)
    affects(pressure: Pressure, target: EnvironmentalEntity)
    transports(process: EnvironmentalProcess, substance: EnvironmentalEntity)
    measured_by(entity: EnvironmentalEntity, observation: EnvironmentalObservation)
    located_within(entity: EnvironmentalEntity, region: string)
    dependent_on(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)
    associated_with(a: EnvironmentalEntity, b: EnvironmentalEntity)

  constraints:
    - "All relationship endpoints must resolve to typed entities."
    - "Confidence must be within [0, 1]."
    - "Measurements must retain units, uncertainty and detection limits where available."
    - "Spatial and temporal scale must be explicit for scale-dependent assertions."
    - "Association alone must not establish causation."
    - "Do not assume affects, part_of, dependent_on or interacts_with are transitive."
    - "Distinguish observed, modelled and hypothesised relationships."
    - "Do not conflate absence of detection with absence of a substance."

  inference:
    rule interaction_symmetry:
      if interacts_with(a,b) and symmetric_interaction_context(a,b)
      then interacts_with(b,a)
      confidence: "retain original evidence and scope"
    rule supported_measurement:
      if measured_by(e,o) and valid(o)
      then evidence_for(e,o)
      confidence: "observation quality dependent"
    rule bounded_transport:
      if transports(p,s) and validated_path(p) and valid_mass_balance(p,s)
      then potential_exposure_along_path(s,p)
      confidence: "requires transport-model assumptions and uncertainty"

  SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
    - "Map environmental terms to versioned controlled vocabularies where available."
    - "Distinguish identical entities from related ecosystems, habitats and processes."
    - "Preserve spatial boundaries, measurement methods and temporal validity."

  CONFIDENCE:
    range: [0,1]
    factors: [measurement_uncertainty, sampling_design, source_reliability, spatial_representativeness, temporal_representativeness, model_assumptions, replication]
    policy: "Propagate uncertainty; do not increase confidence solely through inference chaining."

  VALIDATION:
    - "Check entity types, units, locations, time windows and provenance."
    - "Flag conflicting measurements, incompatible scales and untested causal claims."
    - "Check conservation constraints when applying mass or energy balance."
    - "Preserve alternative interpretations and missing-data flags."

  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, relation_triples, environmental_observations, uncertainty_annotations, inferred_edges, provenance_records]
    safeguards: [no_unsupported_causal_claims, preserve_spatial_and_temporal_scale, preserve_units, distinguish_observation_from_model]
}

END FLOW ALGEBRA