The Italian Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of CNR, and in particular the Semantic Technologies Laboratory (STLab), from September 2020 is a partner in the WHOW (Water Health Open knoWledge) project funded under the TELECOM CEF-TC-2019-2 (Public Open Data) programme. The three-year project aims to develop a data infrastructure that can contribute to increase the knowledge about the possible relationships between the use of water resources and the spread of diseases. In particular, the project aims at developing the first European knowledge graph on the consumption and quality of ground, internal and marine waters, with data coming from different and heterogeneous sources. This environmental data is then linked with health data on the spread of diseases through the definition of a formal and harmonised semantics, compliant with existing reference standards (e.g., INSPIRE), involving different datasets from Italy and other European countries and institutions.

ISTC-CNR is a partner in the project together with the National Center for Environmental Characterisation and Coastal Protection and Operational Oceanography (CN-COS) and the Service for the National Environmental System (DG-SINA) of the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA, Italy), the Regional Company for Innovation and Procurement (ARIA Spa, Regione Lombardia, Italy) and the company Celeris Advisory Ltd. (Ireland), coordinator of the project.

Of particular importance is the planned co-creation programme, which aims at the widest possible engagement with stakeholders such as research institutes, journalists, associations, companies, other public administrations and individual citizens, interested in reusing the data and other WHOW’s results. These can be involved from the early stages of project development by taking part in a series of regular online meetings. The activities within the co-creation programme will be supported by tools and platforms for sharing and co-creating the documentation and digital artefacts of the project.

The project will be presented to the public for the first time on 17 April 2021, at the meeting of the largest Italian open data community Open Data Sicilia.

WHOW is also on social networks. Follow it through its channels:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/whowproject

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whow-water-health-open-knowledge/