Agroecology thesaurus: An approach based on uses and expert advice

The lack for a French thesaurus dedicated to agroecology led a group of scientific experts and scientific and technical information specialists to build the "Agroecology thesaurus". Its content is based on the output of a territorial watch on Agroecology run in Midi-Pyrenees region between 2013 and 2017. The result, i.e. a structured list of terms, is made accessible under an open license and in a standard format. Its publication on various portals will allow its broad reuse to unforeseen purposes. In this article, we present the methodology used, the thesaurus content and structure as well as its potential for reuse. The original aspect and value of our work is that the group of scientists worked on terms actually used by various stakeholders in the agriculture and food sector. The proposed method can be reused to build thesauri on other emerging domains.