A novel approach for integrating of Earth Observation (EO) data with domain
knowledge using Topic Maps is presented. The domain of the research is glacier, glacial
lake and the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) phenomena. Much information is available
over thousands of glaciers and lakes in Nepal as well as relevant EO data of the region.
However, because the data is available from different sources, it is not simple to access it.
In the project, two Topic Maps ontologies are designed: one for describing the domain data
and the other for describing the EO data. The merging of the two ontologies provides one
semantically rich access point for all the domain data and relevant EO data. After
introducing the approach, the paper describes the domain of research, and then introduces
the Topic Maps technology. Following that, the ontologies designed in the project and the
software architecture are described. Next, several other environmental domains where the
approach described may be useful are listed, and finally conclusions and future work are
presented.

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