On the use of an ontology for the identification of degrees of freedom in urban wastewater systems

The management of Urban Wastewater Systems (UWS) requires a comprehensive understanding of the interactions of processes and substances in the system. This leads to complex numerical models which can be applied to predict management actions or understand misconduction of the system. Nevertheless, for the communication between stakeholders in the process of optimizing a UWS these models are far too sophisticated. In this paper the use of an ontology is described serving as a conceptual model of the UWS which can be used for dissemination or as a preliminary stage to numerical models. The ontology therefore is part of a dissemination tool describing potential measures which can be applied to optimize a UWS.