EGU2026

Proposing an Ontology for the Innovative Design of Future-Ready Forest Decision Support Systems

Sina Reuter1, Verena C. Griess1, Adriano Mazziotta2, Christian Rosset3, Harald Vacik4, Ivo Vinogradovs5, Olalla Díaz-Yáñez1

1 Department of Environmental Systems Sciences, Forest Resources Management, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2 Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Helsinki, Finland
3 Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences Zollikofen, Switzerland
4 Department of Ecosystem Management, Climate and Biodiversity, BOKU-University, Vienna, Austria
5 University of Latvia, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Riga, Latvia

Oral presentation: Thursday, 07 May, 08:55–09:05 (CEST), Room -2.62

Abstract

ForestDSS Ontology

The ForestDSS ontology provides a shared, formalized framework for structuring forest decision support system components and their relationships across core domains, including data, models, software, and decision contexts. It also integrates emerging requirements such as climate-sensitive modelling, ecosystem services, flexible forest management concepts and landscape-scale interactions as as a semantic backbone.

The ontology enables consistent description, comparison, and evaluation of decision support approaches, supports interoperable and reusable DSS development, and provides a common foundation for improved domain knowledge transfer. It also enables advanced applications, such as AI-assisted recommendation and system configuration.

ForestDSS ontology visualization
Visualization of the ForestDSS ontology showing classes and object properties. Nodes represent ontology classes; solid blue arrows denote subclass relations refining the classes into more specific subclasses. Dashed, color-coded arrows indicate object properties linking the main conceptual classes. The diagram highlights the ontology’s modular structure and shows how its core components are semantically interconnected.

Presentation

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