---
title: "Provenance"
chunk: 5/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:44:58.110534+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Computer science ===
Within computer science, informatics uses the term "provenance" to mean the lineage of data, as per data provenance, with research in the last decade extending the conceptual model of causality and relation to include processes that act on data and agents that are responsible for those processes. See, for example, the proceedings of the International Provenance Annotation Workshop (IPAW) and Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP). Semantic web standards bodies, including the World Wide Web Consortium in 2014, have ratified a standard data model for provenance representation known as PROV which draws from many of the better-known provenance representation systems that preceded it, such as the Proof Markup Language and the Open Provenance Model.
Interoperability is a design goal of most recent computer science provenance theories and models, for example the Open Provenance Model (OPM) 2008 generation workshop aimed at "establishing inter-operability of systems" through information exchange agreements. Data models and serialisation formats for delivering provenance information typically reuse existing metadata models where possible to enable this. Both the OPM Vocabulary and the PROV Ontology make extensive use of metadata models such as Dublin Core and Semantic Web technologies such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Current practice is to rely on the W3C PROV data model, OPM's successor.
There are several maintained and open-source provenance capture implementation at the operating system level such as CamFlow, Progger for Linux and MS Windows, and SPADE for Linux, MS Windows, and MacOS. Operating system level provenance have gained interest in the security community notably to develop novel intrusion detection techniques. Other implementations exist for specific programming and scripting languages, such as RDataTracker for R, and NoWorkflow for Python.

==== Whole-system provenance implementation for Linux ====
PASS – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.X
Hi-Fi – open source – not maintained – kernel v3.2.x
Flogger – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
S2Logger – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
LPM – open source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
Progger – open source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x and kernel v.4.14.x
CamFlow – open source – maintained – kernel v6.0.X

=== Petrology ===

In the geologic use of the term, provenance instead refers to the origin or source area of particles within a rock, most commonly in sedimentary rocks. It does not refer to the circumstances of the collection of the rock. The provenance of sandstone, in particular, can be evaluated by determining the proportion of quartz, feldspar, and lithic fragments (see diagram).

=== Seed provenance ===
Seed provenance refers to the geographic location of a parent plant, from which seeds were collected. In the context of ecological restoration, seed provenancing refers to a seed-sourcing strategy that focuses on the geographic location of seed sources, as each provenance can describe the genetic material from that location. Local provenancing is a position maintained by ecologists that suggests that only seeds of local provenance should be planted in a particular area. However, this view depends on the adaptationist program – a view that populations are universally locally adapted. It is maintained that local seed is best adapted to local conditions, and that outbreeding depression will be avoided. Evolutionary biologists suggest that strict adherence to provenance collecting is not a wise decision because:

Local adaptation is not as common as assumed.
Background population maladaptation can be driven by natural processes.
Human actions of habitat fragmentation drive maladaptation up and adaptive potential down.
Natural selection is changing rapidly due to climate change. and habitat fragmentation
Population fragments are unlikely to divergence by natural selection since fragmentation (< 500 years). This leads to a low risk of outbreeding depression.
Provenance trials, where material of different provenances are planted in a single place or at different locations spanning a range of environmental conditions, is a way to reveal genetic variation among provenances. It also contributes to an understanding of how different provenances respond to various climatic and environmental conditions and can as such contribute with knowledge on how to strategically select provenances for climate change adaptation.