What does GeoIKP mean?
GeoIKP stands for Geospatial Information Knowledge Platform and serves as a hub for sharing knowledge on Nature-based Solutions (NBS).
What are Nature-based Solutions?
Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are solutions inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience.
What is this platform about?
On the GeoIKP, you can
→ explore and browse Nature-based Solutions around the world, and
→ get guidance through the first steps for starting your own Nature-based Solution project.
Who is behind the GeoIKP?
The GeoIKP was developed within the H2020 OPERANDUM project.
First Navigation
Get inspired! Start browsing Nature-based Solutions around the world:
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What is the difference between the NBS Catalogue and Best Practices? → The NBS Catalogue offers more than 500 Nature-based Solution case studies which are added to the platform by users. These case studies are presented in a semi-standardised way, thus, you can easily filter them e.g., by flooding. Here you can find more guidance on the NBS Catalogue. → The Best Practice selected collection of case studies from the project providing you with more detailed information including risk assessment, information on the implementation of Nature-based Solution, policies, and much more. Here you can find more guidance on Best Practices. |
How do you start your own Nature-based Solution project? Follow these steps and get started:
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How can these tools help me start my own Nature-based Solution project? Browse through stories written by citizens and associations that started from similar starting points as you. They talk about how they got started, which challenges they faced and how they eventually overcame these challenges. Here you can find more guidance on the Citizen Stories and also how to share your own story! You already know the problem/hazard in your area and want to get recommendations for which Nature-based Solution could be suitable for your area? Go to the NBS Toolkit, enter your location and problem/hazard and the toolkit will suggest you possible Nature-based Solutions. Here you can find more guidance on the NBS Toolkit. You have decided on a Nature-based Solution and try to get funding or permission for it? You will need to consider different legislation and policies. Permitting Paths presents you examples of what you might need to consider to get the permission for building the Nature-based Solution. Here you can find more guidance on the Permitting Paths. You learnt about potential legislation/policies that you need to consider? Check them out in the Policy Catalogue! Here you can find more guidance on the Policy Catalogue.
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Register & Sign-inDo I need to register and log in to use the platform? Actually, you don’t need to! But you can get more benefits and features when you do! For example, you can review your added content. It’s getting complicated? First start browsing the platform and think about registering later!
If you decide to register, simply click on the button in the top right corner and sign up:  Step 1: Sign up by entering your details and click on the ‘Register’ button.
Step 2: Sign in Log in with your email address and password
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If you are not registered yet: click on ‘sign up’ underneath the ‘Sign in’ button to create an account. |
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NBS Catalogue
Browse Nature-based Solutions around the world!
NBS_CAT_A.mp4
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Where do all these Nature-based Solution case studies come from? The case studies are all crowdsourced - meaning that any user can add case studies to the NBS Catalogue! Are you aware of any Nature-based Solutions in your area? You can add them to the catalogue by using the tool: Contribute → Add your NBS. Here you can find more guidance on the Add your NBS. How do you make sure the case studies are of good quality? All entered Nature-based Solutions are reviewed by OPERANDUM experts. You can see in the top right corner of each solution whether they are reviewed or pending review (see image below). |
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Search and filter the Nature-based Solutions for your needs! The blue search bar offers to search for and filter Nature-based Solutions. 1. Type your keywords in the search field or select filters for a specific Nature-based Solution Type or Hazard (if you click on the two arrows, you will get more filter options). 2. Select your choice and press the search button. 3. The results will be shown on the map and listed underneath the map.
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What do these filters mean? → Hazard: hydrometeorological hazards (e.g., flood & drought). → Global Challenge: the SDG targets the NBS is tackling (e.g., water management). → Policy Level: the level where policies influence the implementation (e.g., local or global). → Ecosystem: local landscapes (e.g., forest). → NBS Approach: the degree of intervention in nature (e.g., conservation, management). → NBS Type: The actual NBS that was chosen to be implemented (e.g., green roof). |
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| title | Get more information on a Nature-based Solution! |
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How can I get more information? Simply click on the Nature-based Solution that interests you and a new page will open with a lot of more information!
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| title | Share Nature-based Solutions with your peer! |
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Can I share a Nature-based Solution? Yes, once you have clicked on one Nature-based Solution and you see more information, you find share buttons under the table of content on the left side (see image below). Simply select the social media channel or only ‘Copy NBS link’ and share the solution with your peer!
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Can I print the information? Yes, underneath the share button you find a Print NBS information button which creates a .pdf version for you! |
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| title | Compare Nature-based Solutions with each other! |
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How can I compare different Nature-based Solutions? 1. In the results list, on the bottom of each Nature-based Solution, you find a ✓ 2. Click the ✓ of the ones that interest you (up to 5) and the tick will double 3. Click on the orange button (see image below) to compare the selected case studies 4. A new page will open for comparing them
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Best Practices
What are Best Practices?
Best Practices are selected esxamples from Nature-based Solutions that were tested in projects. Here, you can find more detailed information location, problems, and how Nature-based Solutions are implemented to solve these problems.
BestPractice.mp4
Citizen Stories
How to start a Nature-based Solution project?
Learn from citizens and associations starting their projects, which challenges they faced and which solutions they found:
CitizenStories.mp4
What does this toolkit offer?
This NBS Toolkit suggests you Nature-based Solutions that could be suitable for your area.
These 5 steps (image below) will guide you through the NBS Toolkit. You can always go back by clicking on the buttons.
Step 1 (criteria):
All you need to do is to set the 'criteria':
1. select one hazard
2. an area of your interest, and
3. click ‘Analysis’
Step 2 (interventions):
After clicking on Analysis, you will a list of suitable solutions. Here, you can either
1. make a quick check of the NBS,
2. check the NBS in more detail, or
3. compare an NBS with other NBS.
Step 3 (compare):
You have selected 2 to 5 Nature-based Solutions? Compare them by clicking on the compare button (see image below) which appears in the middle at the bottom of the page after adding at least one Nature-based Solution to compare.
After clicking on this orange button, you will get to a page where you can see all selected Nature-based Solutions.
Step 4 (future):
This step is still under development and will be available soon.
Step 5 (co-creation):
Now, you have selected one or more Nature-based Solutions which could suitable for your area and you have explored how the hazard might change in the future (Step 4); thus, the final step is to actually start designing and planning the solution. In this co-creation step, you can explore furture steps to do to get started with your Nature-based Solution project.
Note: This tool is a prototype and will experience further development in the near future.
Interactive Map
Are you looking for information on an area of your interest? For example, which soils are there?
This interactive map offers you a lot of maps to explore! Compare different maps to see whether the are is suitable for your Nature-based Solution. Below you can see the main functions of this interactive map:
InteractiveMap.mp4Actions:
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What is the layer manager? It is the place where you can get information about the layers or where you can change settings (e.g., change the opacity). Have a look at the figure below to see which buttons do what:
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By clicking on the tool wheel, you get more information and tools for managing one map. Here, you can change the transparency of a map to see two overlaying maps at a time, you can remove maps, you can get more information on the map and see the legend. |
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| title | Get information for one specific place |
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Do you want to know how many people live in 1 km2 in your street or get other information? 1. Simply click on the point of your interest on the map and you will get the values of all maps that you can see on the interface. You can also click on the Nature-based Solution location icons to get more information. 2. After selecting a point of your interest, a window will pop up presenting you the information of the point of interest (see image below).
Note: that this tool provides you information on all visible maps. (In the above example, only the population density map is visible. |
Use case example:
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| title | Your organization wants to build a retention pond in your city and you want to find the most suitable location to convince the mayor to get approval and funding. |
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Open the Interactive Map. At first glance, you can see a map and on the left side you can see which layers are opened at the moment. You want to identify areas with flood potential that are close to your home to find a suitable location for your retention pond. Step 1: Add layers At the moment, there are only an NBS and OAL map visible. To add more layers, you can click on the categories on the left side. Environment > Soil > Global Hydrological Soil Groups
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The map global hydrological soil groups describes the characteristics of the soil to take in water (from rainfall). For instance, urban areas with surfaces like roads are able to let water into the soil. If the water cannot infiltrate into the soil it will flow on e.g., the road to lower areas. This process is called surface runoff. On this map you can see which areas are good for infiltrating water and which not. |
Risk > Flood > Flood Hazard Map (RP10y)
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The flood hazard map presents area that are potentially affected by rivers exceeding their banks. The map you added presents the potential flood water depth for a flooding event that may happens once in 10 years (= RP10y). |
Step 2: Remove unnecessary maps Now, you can organize the layers: remove the layers Open-Air Laboratories and the NBS layer by clicking, firstly, on the wheel next to the layer name and then on the remove button.
 Step 3: Zoom in to the location of your interest Zoom in to the city Leichlingen (where you live) by typing the city name in the search bar.
 Step 4: Get familiar with the maps Click on the wheel of each map to learn more about the maps. Now, you can see the legend of the flood hazard map. By clicking on the information button on the bottom, a box will pop up with more information on the map.
 Step 5: Analyze the maps After familiarizing yourself with the maps, you can change the opacity of the global hydrological soil group map so that you can see the map below presenting the roads and so on.
 From the hydrological soil map, you can see that not the entire city has a high surface runoff potential but mostly the center of the city through which a river flows. From the flood map, you can see the river flood potential for the city. You know that the River Wupper flows from north to south in this view. Next to the icon, you see that there is a minor flooding potential. To examine this area better, you can hide the hydrological soil map for a moment by clicking on the eye button next to the wheel button.
 You can see that the area with the minor flooding potential is close to the green area which can function as water storage area.
Step 6: Identify a suitable area for your Nature-based Solution Since the north of the city is very rural with water storage areas, you suggest to build the retention pond rather in the center of the city where there is a high runoff and river flood potential. By hiding all layers, you can see that this area is densely built but there area some parks which could gain a retention pond. Adding a retention pond to the park will simultaneously increase the attractiveness of the park.
 Step 7: Get more insights with additional maps Now, you identified a potential location and can continue with an in-depth analysis.
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Policy Catalogue
Are you looking for policies related to flooding? Or other policies?
Here, you can browse more than 2000 policy documents (maily from Europe)! To find policies faster, you can search by country, by key word, or set filters:
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What does the Policy Catalogue has to offer? → you can open the policy document directly→ it shows you a selection it shows you a selection of similar policies → it presents you which NBS case studies (from the NBS Catalogue) are linked to this policy document
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Use case example:
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| title | You are planning to build a Nature-based Solution for flood reduction in Germany. |
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You have decided on the most suitable Nature-based Solution to lower the risk of flooding in your village but which legislation do you need to consider? You checked from the example Permitting Pathsand read about the European Floods Directive. Step 1: Filter policy documents Now, you want to know more about it. Open the Policy Finder and search for ‘directive’. The results are shown below the map. The Floods Directive is presented with a brief summary. You can click on the file button to download and read the document.
 Image RemovedStep 2: Find similar policies for Germany Click on ‘Show similar policies’ to explore other important EU level policies. You want to explore more flood related policies for Germany? Remove your directive search and make a new one: click on Germany on the map and from the mind map select hazard, (zoom out a bit) and then flood.  Image RemovedStep 3: Study the policies Now, you can browse the policies that might affect your Nature-based Solution implementation.→ you can open the policy document directly
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Permitting Paths
What is a permitting path?
A Permitting Path is a path from planning a Nature-based Solution and reviewing all policies and legislations that need to be taken into account until the official permission to implement the planned Nature-based Solution.
What does this tool offer?
We have analysed different permitting paths from Nature-based Solutions in Europe and summarised them in a more general permitting path. The permitting path is always different depending on the country, Nature-based Solutions, etc. but you here we have summarised the main policies that you might need to consider for your Nature-based Solution project. Main policies can be related to:
→ Environmental legislation
→ Hazard and ecosystem legislation
→ Administrative legislation
→ Building & Landscape legislation
Check out how a permitting path could look like?
Simply select an OPERANDUM case study (so-called OAL) from the drop-down menu and browse through the different legislations:
Note: permitting paths vary greatly depending on the country, the Nature-based Solution to be implemented and the area you want to implement it. Therefore, the examples cannot provide you a step by step guide but rather an overview on what might need to be considered.
Add your NBS
Do you know any existing Nature-based Solutions?
Yes, then share it with the community by adding it to the NBS Catalogue:
Go step-by-step through this form (image below) and fill as much information as you know. Fields marked with an * are mandatory to be filled.
Note: You can add Nature-based Solutions without being logged in on the platform. However, only if you register aand are logged in, you can edit your added Nature-based Solutions after saving.
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You can always cancel the entry. You can always save your draft and continue later (when logged in). |
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Once you have filled in all required information, you can Save your NBS; Save your NBS and add policies that were influencing the implementation of the NBS; or Save and add datasets presenting the NBS or that you used/produced for pre-assessment, monitoring, or evaluation.
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After saving your NBS, the NBS will be reviewed before publishing it in the collection. This process can take several days.
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| title | Edit your Nature-based Solution |
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Make sure you are logged in. | Info |
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Nature-based Solution entries can be edited or deleted by finding the right NBS in the NBS Catalogue, clicking on the edit button, editing the information, and saving the edits.
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Your Feedback
You wish to share some thoughts with us?
Send us an email: info[at]kajoservices.com