Using ontologies for decision support in resource messaging

Emergency management is by its nature, and in some jurisdictions by its definition, an activity that requires a concerted effort by a number of governmental and non-governmental agencies. There is a growing appreciation that collaboration between these parties is best served through the use of interoperable standards for message formats for purposes such as alerting and resource exchange. However, it is also important to realize that, although much advantage can be drawn from standardizing certain aspects of communication, such as the structure of messages, different agencies will use different vocabularies. In this paper we discuss how ontologies can be used with standard messaging formats for resource messaging to enable intelligent decision support mechanisms in the presence of differing vocabularies across organizational boundaries. We also present a survey of the opportunities for using ontologies in emergency management, and the issues that must be addressed.