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Alignment with ODM2 site type

The ODM2 site type vocabulary (http://vocabulary.odm2.org/sitetype/) names the kind of place at which a site, an ODM2 sampling feature, is located: a stream, a spring, a landfill, a laboratory. BERVO has no notion of a site. It does have the features a site sits on, and those are what the vocabulary maps onto, in the same way that the medium vocabulary mapped onto the materials rather than onto specimens. This page records the mapping. It is the third step on issue #66, after the speciation and medium vocabularies.

Source

The JSON export at http://vocabulary.odm2.org/api/v1/sitetype/?format=json, fetched on 2026-09-21. It holds 53 concepts. Cross-references take the form ODM2:sitetype/<id>, using the ODM2 prefix already declared in src/ontology/bervo.Makefile; each emitted IRI redirects (301) to the same path with a trailing slash, which returns the concept page. The ODM2 definition is quoted in the term's Comment. Where an ENVO term names the same feature it is added as a second cross-reference; every ENVO ID was checked against OLS.

Where the features live

Two branches of Concept hold them. Natural features sit under the existing Environmental feature (BERVO:8000400), which came from COMO with no children. COMO defined it as a characteristic of the environment, such as elevation or soil type, and that reading does not hold once a glacier is a subclass of it. It is redefined here as a material part of the environment on or in which observations are made, and it gains ENVO:01000813 (astronomical body part), the ENVO class that Water body, Landform, and the atmosphere all descend from, beside its COMO:0000217. The COMO reference stays for provenance, as Environmental material keeps COMO:0000230 beside ENVO:00010483, and its reading is recorded in the term's Comment. The ENVO class is far wider than this term; it is the nearest live class ENVO has, and ENVO:00002297 (environmental feature) is obsolete there. Two new grouping concepts sit beneath it: Water body (BERVO:8000724) for the surface water sites, and Landform (BERVO:8000725) for springs, caves, and the other shapes of the ground. Built features sit under a new Human construction (BERVO:8000726), with Facility (BERVO:8000727) beneath it for ODM2's facility sites and Sewer (BERVO:8000729) for the three kinds of sewer. Power plant (BERVO:8000728) gathers the hydroelectric and thermoelectric plants under Facility. The five groupings carry ENVO cross-references where ENVO has the class, and all of them are 8xxxxxx concepts rather than 9xxxxxx grouping classes, since each is a thing a site can be on and a context a variable can carry, as Chemical and Environmental material are.

ODM2 concepts mapped to existing BERVO terms

ODM2 concept BERVO term Note
Atmosphere Atmosphere (BERVO:8000131) Moves under Environmental feature; gains ENVO:01000810
Field, Pasture, Orchard, or Nursery Field (BERVO:8000084) Moves under Land surface; gains ENVO:00000114; see below
Lake, Reservoir, Impoundment Lake (BERVO:8000285) Lake gains reservoir and impoundment as related synonyms and moves under Water body
Land Land surface (BERVO:8000134) Moves under Environmental feature; gains ENVO:01001785
Subsurface Subsurface (BERVO:8000053) Moves under Environmental feature; gains ENVO:01000941

New terms

BERVO term Parent ODM2 concept Other cross-reference
Water body (BERVO:8000724) Environmental feature ENVO:00000063
Landform (BERVO:8000725) Environmental feature ENVO:01001886
Human construction (BERVO:8000726) Concept ENVO:00000070
Facility (BERVO:8000727) Human construction Facility ENVO:03501288
Power plant (BERVO:8000728) Facility ENVO:00002214
Sewer (BERVO:8000729) Human construction
Stream (BERVO:8000730) Water body Stream ENVO:00000023
Tidal stream (BERVO:8000731) Stream Tidal stream ENVO:00000412
Wetland (BERVO:8000732) Environmental feature Wetland ENVO:00000043
Estuary (BERVO:8000733) Water body Estuary ENVO:00000045
Ocean (BERVO:8000734) Water body Ocean ENVO:00000015
Coastal water (BERVO:8000735) Water body Coastal ENVO:02000049
Canal (BERVO:8000736) Water body and Human construction Canal ENVO:00000014
Ditch (BERVO:8000737) Water body and Human construction Ditch ENVO:00000037
Spring (BERVO:8000738) Landform Spring ENVO:00000027
Glacier (BERVO:8000739) Environmental feature Glacier ENVO:00000133
Cave (BERVO:8000740) Landform Cave ENVO:00000067
Outcrop (BERVO:8000741) Landform Outcrop ENVO:01000302
Sinkhole (BERVO:8000742) Landform Sinkhole ENVO:00000195
Playa (BERVO:8000743) Landform Playa ENVO:00000196
Shore (BERVO:8000744) Landform Shore ENVO:00000304
Volcanic vent (BERVO:8000745) Landform Volcanic vent ENVO:00000216
Unsaturated zone (BERVO:8000746) Subsurface Unsaturated zone ENVO:00000328
Cistern (BERVO:8000747) Human construction Cistern
Combined sewer (BERVO:8000748) Sewer Combined sewer
Storm sewer (BERVO:8000749) Sewer Storm sewer
Wastewater sewer (BERVO:8000750) Sewer Wastewater sewer
Septic system (BERVO:8000751) Human construction Septic system
Water distribution system (BERVO:8000752) Human construction Water-distribution system
Groundwater drain (BERVO:8000753) Human construction Groundwater drain
Underground excavation (BERVO:8000754) Human construction Tunnel, shaft, or mine
Soil pit (BERVO:8000755) Human construction Soil hole
Water diversion (BERVO:8000756) Human construction Diversion
Outfall (BERVO:8000757) Human construction Outfall
Pavement (BERVO:8000758) Human construction Pavement ENVO:01001272
Animal waste lagoon (BERVO:8000759) Facility Animal waste lagoon
Golf course (BERVO:8000760) Land surface and Human construction Golf course
House (BERVO:8000761) Facility House ENVO:01000417
Hydroelectric plant (BERVO:8000762) Power plant Hydroelectric plant
Thermoelectric plant (BERVO:8000763) Power plant Thermoelectric plant
Laboratory (BERVO:8000764) Facility Laboratory or sample-preparation area ENVO:01001406
Landfill (BERVO:8000765) Landform Landfill ENVO:00000533
Wastewater treatment plant (BERVO:8000766) Facility Wastewater-treatment plant ENVO:00002043
Water supply treatment plant (BERVO:8000767) Facility Water-supply treatment plant
Water-use establishment (BERVO:8000768) Facility Water-use establishment
Wastewater land application site (BERVO:8000769) Land surface Wastewater land application

Not mapped

Seven concepts are conveniences of the ODM2 database rather than kinds of place, and are left out:

  • Unknown is a placeholder.
  • Composite is an aggregation of co-located sampling features at one point, such as a gauge, a weather station, and a well together.
  • Aggregate groundwater use, Aggregate surface-water-use, and Aggregate water-use establishment are USGS water-use accounting classes that stand for many sites summed over an area.
  • Network infrastructure is telemetry hardware such as a radio repeater.
  • Critical Zone Observatories names a funding programme's network of sites, not a kind of site.

Points to note

  • Canal and Ditch have Water body as Category and Human construction as a second parent through Parents, since each is both. Pavement, Cistern, and the rest of the built list are constructions only.
  • Wetland and Glacier sit directly under Environmental feature. ODM2 files wetland under its surface water sites and ENVO files it under vegetated area; ENVO files glacier under masses of environmental material. Neither is a water body or a landform in a way a reviewer would not argue with, so they are left at the top.
  • Spring, Cave, and Shore follow ENVO under Landform. Outcrop and Sinkhole join them; ENVO classes outcrop as a portion of material, which is not a distinction BERVO draws.
  • Land surface (BERVO:8000134) had no children before and now has Field, Golf course, and Wastewater land application site, each a tract of land. Its definition was a mass noun, the solid portion of the Earth's surface, and a golf course is not that. It is reworded distributively, as an area of that surface from the whole down to a single tract, and the sentence on energy exchange moves to its Comment. terrain stays as an exact synonym and ENVO:01001785 (land) stays as the reference; both read as the whole, and the subclass reading is BERVO's own. ENVO does not file agricultural field under land either; its parent there is field (ENVO:01000352). Field under Land surface is BERVO's choice, not ENVO's, unlike Landfill under Landform.
  • Atmosphere, Land surface, and Subsurface move from Concept to Environmental feature. Each is already used as a contexts value (23, 0, and 30 times), and the move changes none of those. ENVO makes the atmosphere and the geographic features alike parts of an astronomical body, which is the sense in which they are siblings here.
  • Lake takes ODM2's Lake, Reservoir, Impoundment and gains reservoir and impoundment as related synonyms. ENVO keeps reservoir (ENVO:00000025) as a separate artificial water body; BERVO has no call for that split yet.
  • ODM2's Field, Pasture, Orchard, or Nursery maps to Field (BERVO:8000084). Field's old definition also covered open land "supporting natural vegetation", which neither ODM2 nor ENVO's agricultural field (ENVO:00000114) includes. It is narrowed to land managed for agricultural use, whether cropped, grazed, planted as an orchard, or run as a nursery, so that it says what both cross-references say. agricultural field is an exact synonym and pasture, orchard, nursery, and cropland are related synonyms, recording ODM2's lumping. If a pasture or an orchard ever needs its own term it goes under Field.
  • ODM2's Tunnel, shaft, or mine becomes Underground excavation, with tunnel, shaft, and mine as related synonyms. ENVO has each of the three as a separate class and none for their union, so no ENVO reference is made.
  • ODM2's Soil hole becomes Soil pit, the name in common use, with soil hole as an exact synonym.
  • ODM2's Laboratory or sample-preparation area becomes Laboratory, with sample preparation area as a related synonym.
  • ODM2's Coastal becomes Coastal water, a marine water body, following ENVO's coastal water body. Diversion becomes Water diversion, and Wastewater land application becomes Wastewater land application site, so the labels read as things rather than acts.
  • Outfall and Water diversion sit side by side under Human construction. ODM2 files one under facility sites and the other under surface water sites; they are mirror images and are kept together.
  • Golf course, Landfill, and Wastewater land application site are areas of land rather than assembled structures, and they follow ENVO rather than ODM2's facility grouping. ENVO files landfill (ENVO:00000533) as a depressed landform, so Landfill sits under Landform. ENVO has no golf course class and names golf courses in its area of developed open space (ENVO:01000883), a land-use zone; that class is wider than a golf course and is not cross-referenced. Golf course and Wastewater land application site sit under Land surface beside Field, as tracts of land under a use. Golf course also takes Human construction as a second parent, as Canal and Ditch do, since it is engineered land; a land application site is a use of land, not a construction, and takes no second parent.
  • ENVO's alkaline flat (ENVO:00000196) lists playa as a synonym and is the reference for Playa.
  • fumarole is a related synonym of Volcanic vent, not an exact one. ODM2 says "also known as fumarole", and ENVO's fumarole (ENVO:00000216) is the reference, but in geological usage a vent is the wider term.
  • Five new labels use "plant" in the industrial sense: Power plant, Hydroelectric plant, Thermoelectric plant, Wastewater treatment plant, and Water supply treatment plant. Plant (BERVO:8000021) is the organism. The labels are distinct and the validator is content; a lexical matcher over BERVO labels will need to know the two senses.
  • Facility and its children, the plants, the laboratory, the house, and the water-use establishment, reach further from earth systems modelling than the rest of BERVO. They are here so that a dataset's ODM2 site type can always be expressed; they can be pruned if that turns out not to matter.