The use of GEMET for the Swiss Environmental Catalogue “Envirocat”

1 UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva

The use of GEMETfor the

Swiss Environmental Catalogue“Envirocat”

14-15 April 2004


The use of GEMET for Swiss Environmental Catalogue

• What is Envirocat?

• Why did we choose GEMET as the Thesaurus?

• How was GEMET implemented in Envirocat?

• Comments and needs


What is Envirocat?

• UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva is involved in two projects of

SAEFL (Swiss Agency for Environment, Forest and

Landscape): CH-CDS and Alpine CDS (Catalogue of Data

Sources).

A SAEFL/UNEP partnership for the Swiss environmental metadata catalogue


What is Envirocat?

• In 1998, SAEFL decide to use the European system ‘CDS’, the application Webcds

was launched officially in June 2000.

• In 2003, it is decided to develop a new tool called ‘Envirocat’

allowing decentralised on-line management of metadata.

• Partners’ requests and CDS experience and analysis was used during

the new application development.


Why did we choose GEMET as Thesaurus?

• Save the amount of work invested in metadata collection and facilitate

the importation of the 6,000 metadata-entries already included and

their key words indexing.

A major priority was to:


Why did we choose GEMET as Thesaurus?• 2’449 addresses

defined by 1’137 keywords,• 3’535 objects

defined by 12’808 keywords.

administrationagricultureairbiologybuildingchemistryclimatenatural dynamicseconomicsenergyenvironmental policyfisheryfood, drinking waterforestrygeneralgeographyhuman healthanimal husbandryindustryinformationlegislationmilitary aspectsnatural areas, landscape, ecosystemsnoise, vibrationsphysicspollutionmaterialsradiationstourismresearchresourcesdisasters, accidents, risktrade, servicessocial aspects, populationsoilspacetransporturban environment, urban stresswastewater



Switzerland needed at least 4 languages: de, fr, it, en

The access analysis shows us the relative weight of each language.

CH-CDS language use in 2002

German: 45%

French: 30%

Italian: 12%

English: 13%

Its linguistic possibilities:



• In order to have a large set of environmental terms to be used to:

– describe metadata (could have less);

– search metadata (number ensures better retrieval)

87,193 terms in GEMET 3.0!


How GEMET was implemented in Envirocat?

• the weight of the Thesaurus was reduced: only 4 languages were kept:

(German, French, English and Italian) 87,193 terms -> 24,274;

• Database model was simplified

– hierarchy was not answering exactly to our needs: so we kept only terms

and themes tables (not synonyms, groups, supergroups)

– Broader and Narrower terms were used to create a relation table

representing the hierarchy.

A subset of GEMET 3.0 is currently running for better system performance:



• keep hierarchy of terms;

• allow attribution to EEA themes

(automatically created through terms);

• Add and eventually link other Thesauri

in the future if needed ...

The data model allows multiple hierarchy to:



During fulfillment:



For search... Test data existing in database:title Essai de donnée sur le lacabstract:L'utilisation ... forêt …. l'eau ....Keywords: gestion agricole

without option

search 'eau' = ok

search 'forêt' = ok

search 'agricole' = no

search 'wasser' = no

search 'forest' = no

search 'Landwirtschaft' = no

with option search in thesaurus

search 'eau' = ok


search 'agricole' = ok

search 'wasser' = no

search 'forest' = no

search 'landwirtschaft' = ok

with option search in thesaurus +Translation

search 'eau' = ok


search 'agricole' = ok

search 'wasser' = ok

search 'forest' = ok

search 'landwirtschaft' = ok



For topic search... In CH-WebCDS experience, we see that the average use was 78% done by ‘quick search’, 17% by ‘topic search’ and 5% by ‘expert search’.

EEA topic can be selected with ‘ticks’.


Comments and needs?

Alpine Convention ISO 19.115 Mountain Farming Regional Planning Waste Management Energy Mountain forests Population and Culture Conservation of Nature and the Countryside

Soil Conservation Prevention of Air Pollution Water Management Tourism and Recreation Transport

Farming Biota Boundaries Climatology, Meteorology, Atmosphere Economy Elevation Environment Geoscientific Information Health Imagery, Base maps, Earth Cover Intelligence, Military Inland Waters Location Oceans Planning, Cadastre Society Structure Transportation Utilities, Communications


Comments and needs?

• Sometimes too detailed or specific;

• Duplication of terms due to different translations

(i.e. Lärmbekämpfung/lutte contre le bruit, and

Lärmbekämpfung/Diminution du bruit)

GEMET:


Comments and needs?

• Add new Thematic Theme list

Envirocat future development in termof Thesaurus: Direct user remarks.

Implementation of access analysis tool to answer the following questions: which words are often searched by a normal user or by authors during edition phase?

Add terms “à la mode”.Obtain less themes (about 20 vs 40 EEA themes) and build a thematic hierarchy.

Link GEMET with other topic list and eventually implement themes from ISO 19.115 and Alpine Convention.

• Adding/deleting terms according to the user needs


Comments and needs?

• Is it possible to develop a kind of ISO standard for Environmental

Thesauri?

• New Thesaurus of “Super” Thesaurus should ensure compatibility with

GEMET product.

• An Environmental Thesaurus core could be maintained through an

international working group and an on-line service could be proposed to

download extension module (for GEMET or new Thesauri) by languages,

thematic specialisations or nations.

Open questions or proposition:


More information?

http://www.envirocat.chActualy 300 metadata published on 6,000 existing

Jean-Philippe RichardUNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva11, Ch. des Anémones

+41 22 917 86 [email protected]

http://www.grid.unep.ch

The use of GEMET for the Swiss Environmental Catalogue “Envirocat”

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