On the use of ontology-based integration architecture in Cemaden's Natural Disaster Observational Network.

This paper describes a study performed in the Brazilian governmental center, named Cemaden, responsible to monitor natural disasters and sending alerts to the vulnerable community involved. The target of our study is the complex architecture of Cemaden’s Observational Network. It comprises constituent systems (CS) provided by other partners organisms, which operation and maintenance are out of Cemaden con trolling. The correct functioning of those heterogeneous CSs represents a major challenge in this type of system. Thus the comprehension of dependability issues regarding the information flow in the integration of the CSs is essential. Our study compares the current integration architecture based on syntax rules with the use of an ontology-based integration. The advantages of the proposed architecture are discussed in a case study.