Bitesize: concrete examples of Linked Data

Created: 21 January 2021 Updated: 02 March 2021

Concrete Examples

When publishers make linked data available (whether directly or via downloads and APIs) it enables other organisations to make use of it. There are many good examples from the Environment Agency's linked data, but also from other linked data publishers. Here are a few current examples:

• DBPedia, “allows users to semantically query relationships and properties of Wikipedia resources, including links to other related datasets.” What this means in practice is that all of the information boxes that you can see on wikipedia are queryable. So it is possible to write queries that look for relationships between things that have pages on wikipedia. An example of this is to query all of the rivers on wikipedia, and count up which body of water has the most watercourses discharging into it. Here's the query that does that: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/queries/examples#Body_of_water_with_the_most_watercourses_ending_in_it

• The EA's Public Registers are used by the group Dsposal, who have developed an online platform to connect waste producers with licensed waste companies.

• The BBC use data from the flood warnings API on their website, used by a huge audience in times of flooding.

• FloodRe users the flood warnings and river monitoring APIs to assess and predict their insurance liabilities

• Geographical area definitions and lookups from the ONS at http://statistics.data.gov.uk can be used to connect environmental data about a place with a range of other government statistical data.

• The 'Scottish Tech Army' (a group of furloughed IT professionals offering their skills for public benefit projects) created a dashboard of the Scottish Government’s linked data publishing of Covid statistics

To explore Defra's linked data, go to Defra Data Services Platform. For enquiries about the data, please Ask a Question, Report a Problem or Give Feedback.