A comprehensive study in the realm of disaster and emergency management ontologies

In recent years, the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters - including wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and pandemics - have posed significant threats to human lives and infrastructure. Effective disaster management requires timely decision-making and efficient mechanisms for information collection, processing, storage, and dissemination among governments, organisations, and the public. However, existing disaster information systems often suffer from limited interoperability and insufficient coordination among stakeholders. Ontologies have emerged as a promising approach to address these challenges by enabling semantic interoperability, knowledge sharing, and data integration across heterogeneous systems. This study presents a comprehensive literature review of ontologies developed for natural disaster and emergency management. It aims to identify existing research gaps and examine their practical application domains. A systematic review of the Scopus database (2010-2022), conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines, initially identified 1,596 publications. After rigorous screening, 61 articles were selected, describing 61 distinct ontologies applied across preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation phases of the disaster management cycle.