International Journal of Geo-Information Article Mapping Spatiotemporal Data to RDF: A SPARQL Endpoint for Brussels Alejandro Vaisman 1, * and Kevin Chentout 2 1 Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires 1424, Argentina 2 Sopra Banking Software, Avenue de Tevuren 226, B-1150 Brussels, Belgium * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +54-11-3457-4864 Received: 20 June 2019; Accepted: 7 August 2019; Published: 10 August 2019 Abstract: This paper describes how a platform for publishing and querying linked open data for the Brussels Capital region in Belgium is built. Data are provided as relational tables or XML documents and are mapped into the RDF data model using R2RML, a standard language that allows defining customized mappings from relational databases to RDF datasets. In this work, data are spatiotemporal in nature; therefore, R2RML must be adapted to allow producing spatiotemporal Linked Open Data.Data generated in this way are used to populate a SPARQL endpoint, where queries are submitted and the result can be displayed on a map. This endpoint is implemented using Strabon, a spatiotemporal RDF triple store built by extending the RDF store Sesame. The first part of the paper describes how R2RML is adapted to allow producing spatial RDF data and to support XML data sources. These techniques are then used to map data about cultural events and public transport in Brussels into RDF. Spatial data are stored in the form of stRDF triples, the format required by Strabon. In addition, the endpoint is enriched with external data obtained from the Linked Open Data Cloud, from sites like DBpedia, Geonames, and LinkedGeoData, to provide context for analysis.