Leveraging open data ecosystem and climate policy commitments to develop an urban green deal data space

2023, June 9. Zaragoza, Ferrara, Leuven & Graz commitment to urban data spaces

All insights in this article have come from a series of interviews that were conducted with policy experts in the fields of air quality, biodiversity, emissions, sustainable mobility, urban planning, (open) data policy, IT infrastructure and overall climate policy. 

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ZARAGOZA

One of the main political priorities for the city of Zaragoza is to create strategies that can help the city better adapt and respond to climate change, whilst continuing to promote greater sustainability and energy efficiency, improve mobility and increase the quality of life for the citizens, whilst reducing social vulnerability throughout the city. Open data, and its effective management is key to achieving these goals. In this article, we look at how the city is leveraging the open data ecosystem and climate policy commitments to develop an urban green deal data space. 

Zaragoza in a nutshell

Zaragoza is the capital of the Zaragoza province in the autonomous community of Aragon in Spain, in the northeast of Spain. As of 2022, according to the city’s statistics office, the city has a population of 684,686 people and is 967 KM2 in size. The city is built in the centre of a large valley on the shores of the rivers Ebro, Huerva and Gallego and the Aragonese Imperial Canal. It is strategically located in the north-eastern area of the Iberian Peninsula in the centre of four big cities including Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona and Valencia. This area of Spain represents more than 60% of the GDP of Spain.

Climate challenges facing Zaragoza

The geographical characteristics of the city can make Zaragoza more susceptible to climate and environmental challenges such as extreme temperatures and flooding. Other threats with a moderate risk level include forest fires, strong winds and drought. 

Zaragoza also faces several climate and environmental challenges including:

1. Air quality: need to monitor and reduce the amount of CO2 and other atmospheric pollutants, improve the air quality in the city and avoid health risks to its population.

2. Heat islands: need to counteract the extreme temperatures that affect some parts of the city more than others.

3. Loss of Biodiversity: need to further promote biodiversity and connect the city via the maintenance and conservation of nature.

4. Illegal dumping: need to reduce illegal dumping by industry, something that is affecting the city’s water supply.

So, what are the highlights of this status quo in Zaragoza?

Tackling climate and environmental challenges through policy

Zaragoza has been one of the leading cities in Spain and Europe when it comes to their commitment to the environment. This can be seen from their adherence to the Covenant of Mayors in 2011 and their commitment to reducing the levels of CO2 80% by the year 2030. In addition to their adhesion to the Covenant of Mayors and the subsequent development of the Zaragoza Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2022-2030 (one of the requirements of the adhesion), Zaragoza has recently gone one step further and has been selected by the European Commission to become one of the 100 European Climate neutral cities by the year 2030. This is the main cross cutting strategy at present and one that incorporates all climate and environmental policies in the city.

The city council has also been very active at a more sectoral level, generating innovative policies and initiatives that target the city’s main climate and environmental challenges such as air quality, heat islands, urban planning/mobility, social vulnerability, biodiversity and the circular economy. Key actions here include the first detailed inventory of contaminating emissions that was developed in 2005, the deployment of a thermohygrometric Sensor Network in 2015 to measure the temperature and humidity on an hourly basis in different parts of the city and the Master Plan for Green Infrastructure in 2017.

A focus on open Data

There are several transversal aspects that have an impact on the city’s response to the climate and environmental challenges. One of these aspects is the digitalisation of the city’s services, including the monitoring, analysis and publication of data in an open format.

Open data is one of the top priorities for Zaragoza City Council. Nothing is done without considering open data. It is something that is present from the detection of the need to publish a dataset, right through to the publication of said dataset, and all the steps in between. The representatives from the different departments that were interviewed for the project highlighted that they follow a “open data by default” philosophy with regards to all public information they manage and that they aim to provide FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data for all citizens through Zaragoza’s Digital Portal. Furthermore, the open data philosophy has changed from being a requirement that the city council had to fulfil to becoming a strategic component and asset for the city.

There are three main policies regarding data. Perhaps the most relevant is the work that is being carried out to create a Municipal Ordinance on Open Data. This ordinance has still yet to be finalised and approved but gives an insight into the future management of open data for Zaragoza City Council. The other two policies form the backbone and recent history of digital government and data policies in Zaragoza City Council and include the Municipal Ordinance on Electronic Administration (2010) and the Municipal Ordinance on Transparency and Free Access to Information. These policy initiatives, combined with the work to provide geo-referenced climate and environmental data through the geo-spatial data infrastructure in 2004, can be seen as the factors that have paved the way in creating an open data space in the city of Zaragoza.

Finding synergies between datasets

Zaragoza City Council is currently embarking on the initiative to become one of the 100 European Climate neutral cities by the year 2030. This initiative will directly be linked to and include actions from the other cross cutting strategies and plans that have been developed for the city, such as the Zaragoza Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2022-2030. Furthermore, it will establish links to the more sectoral initiatives that are in place. One of the clear links can be seen with the Inventory of Emissions, as this is what will be used as a basis on which to measure the impact of the different mitigation actions on reducing the % of contaminating agents in the atmosphere.

There are also specific links between the policies that are launched between the different departments in the city council. For example, the Department of Urban Mobility collaborates a great deal with the Department of Environment and Sustainability on initiatives related to noise pollution and low emission zones in the city. Here, the information provided by the Urban Mobility Department is vital for planning and implementation. 

The value of data for Zaragoza

It is evident that data is extremely important to all stakeholders and to the city of Zaragoza. This is particularly true for the Technical Office for Participation, Transparency and Open Government, where nothing is done without considering open data and their “open data by default” philosophy and which plays a key coordinating role in all data projects carried out by the Zaragoza City Council. The main areas where data has most value is in policy formulation and policy evaluation and monitoring. 

Towards an urban green deal data space

Zaragoza already has a digital portal through which most of the data regarding the climate and environment is centralised. The USAGE project will serve as a great opportunity for Zaragoza to bring together the remaining parts of the puzzle, for example, data that isn’t centralised on the platform yet. It will also provide an opportunity to begin to explore new technologies to capture and process data and ensure that data sets are standardised and are “open by default”. 

Furthermore, there are many different stakeholders, both internal and external, that are generating data on the climate and environment in Zaragoza. This project will give the Council a fantastic opportunity to enhance these collaborations and to provide a more solid governance mechanism through which the collaborations can take place. There is also a great opportunity to increase the overall awareness for all stakeholders on the importance of data on the climate and environment and how it can lead to more efficient policy making for the city.

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FERRARA

The USAGE assessment of the policy and data status quo in Ferrara demonstrates: 

1. The climate challenges the city is faced with 

2. The policies and initiatives in place to address these 

3. The stakeholders involved 

4. The needs expressed by stakeholders to help solve the identified climate challenges 

5. The realised and potential added value of data and technological tools in supporting climate policy making 

So, what are the highlights of this status quo in Ferrara?

The city of Ferrara is dealing with various climate challenges. From air pollution to urban heat islands and droughts, intense rainfall leading to floods, and loss of biodiversity, the city faces important environmental concerns. Such challenges require a comprehensive solution, and have been actively addressed, for several years now, through several environmental policy initiatives and programs shaped by regional, national, and European guidelines, along with stakeholder involvement and data management. 

The Municipality of Ferrara plays a pivotal role through its Territorial Government Sector in implementing environmental and climate change policies, involving local, regional, and national actors, private companies, trade associations and ultimately the participation of citizens. 

Municipal stakeholders have expressed several needs that are of legal, organizational, strategic, informational, and technical nature in relation to climate policymaking and their related resources. Such needs emphasized on data underscores the increasing demand for more advanced data-driven policies and tools. 

A rich variety of data is gathered and analyzed to monitor the climate situation and inform appropriate actions. From agenda setting to policy evaluation and monitoring, data is critical in reflecting on potential actions, implementing solutions, and monitoring their progress. The Municipality is focusing on broadening its data collection and integration capabilities to facilitate informed decision-making for climate mitigation and adaptation. However, there are significant challenges in achieving data sharing and interoperability across entities to ensure good data governance and ultimately create a unified climate policy. The Municipality of Ferrara's commitment to creating an integrated data management system aims to not only reinforce climate policy decision-making but also increase transparency and public engagement. The city's green deal data space is set to evolve in harmony with the strategic guidelines on climate and data policies at the regional level. Ferrara's journey toward sustainable climate policies is powered by its commitment to digital transformation and data-driven decision-making, reflecting its holistic approach to tackling climate challenges.

Key findings data status quo:

To support data-driven policy decision making, the Municipality of Ferrara has been undertaking various steps to bolster its technological infrastructure in support of its  local climate actions. The municipality is developing a territorial information system, which consists of a data repository that will contain all the data that is currently  spread over information silos in the different departments of the municipalities, Systemized data sharing mechanisms will eventually be integrated into this system.  Alongside this, the municipality has an open data portal based on the CKAN Data Management System, which is an open-source DMS for data hubs and portals. It makes publishing, sharing and using data easy and powers hundreds of portals globally. The municipality is taking great steps to increase the amount and quality of data available in their repositories. New data is being collected for the city to complement the existing data and facilitate more substantive analyses. This includes commissioning of aerial flights to collect hyperspectral, thermal and LiDAR data. Using machine learning methods and artificial intelligence algorithms, these data will be processed to extract information like surface material classification, vegetation classification and health, as well as generation of DTM (Digital Terrain Model) and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) useful for 3D modelling of the city. Additionally, precipitation data collection will also be improved by the installation of more gauges around the city, as currently only one is installed within the urban area of Ferrara. 

A good example implemented within the municipality demonstrated  the use of  data to address climate challenges is AIRBREAK project, where air quality data has been locally collected and combined with official meteorological data, and afterwards analyzed and presented to the citizens through clear, simple and informative visualizations that communicate complex data in an easy-to-consume way. This approach could be replicated to address other climate challenges as well, like the urban heat stress in the city. Within USAGE, the municipality seeks to address the urban heat islands challenge by evaluating the heat island index based on varying environmental variables from different thematic data, in order to guide planning activities of the municipality. To achieve its goals, the municipality works in close collaboration with technical partners who are very valuable in the green data value chain, from collection of data to performing domain specific data analysis.

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LEUVEN

An urban green deal data space can be seen as an important condition for (and also outcome of) the collaboration between public authorities, businesses, knowledge institutions and citizens of the city of Leuven. The USAGE assessment of the policy and data status quo in Leuven demonstrates:

1. The climate challenges the city is faced with

2. The policies and initiatives in place to address these

3. The stakeholders involved

4. The needs expressed by stakeholders to help solve the identified climate challenges

5. The realised and potential added value of data and technological tools in supporting climate policy making

So, what are the highlights of this status quo in Leuven?

Climate action in the city of Leuven is characterized by a high level of collaboration, not only between various services and departments within the city administration, and but also with all relevant stakeholders in society, including businesses, research institutions, non-profit organizations and citizens. Climate policy is anchored throughout the entire city administration and several coordination mechanisms are established to align and coordinate the interests and efforts of different internal stakeholders. These include a joint strategy, a coordinating unit, clear roles and responsibilities, a consultation body and several internal communication channels. 

A strong quadruple-helix model of cooperation on climate policies and actions has been put in place through the establishment of the Leuven 2030 partnership, which unites all kinds of partners in the transition towards a climate neutral Leuven in 2030. Already prior to the city’s climate action plan, a comprehensive and detailed strategic plan on realizing a sustainable future for the city was drafted by the Leuven 2030 partnership, the ‘Roadmap towards a climate neutral Leuven’. The Roadmap builds on a comprehensive scientific report on climate challenges and climate action, and serves as a guide for collective climate actions in the city of Leuven. 

While the Roadmap and the city’s climate action plan are informed by data and scientific evidence, they also contains several actions dealing with the collection, management and use of data and information for climate policy and action. In the Climate Action Plan of the city, the ambition is formulated to “develop a system in which data are not only used for evaluating policies but also to proactively steer policies”. Several stakeholders in different domains expressed a clear need for a more data-driven climate policy in the city, in which the design, implementation and evaluation of climate actions are strategically and systematically supported through data. 

Since relevant data are collected, provided and managed by many different stakeholders, in different sectors and domains, the quadruple-helix model of collaboration is also be effective for dealing with data in supporting climate actions. Initiatives within Leuven2030 like Urban Lab, as well as Leuven MindGate and Leuven Smart City bring together education, research, and social engagement in Leuven to tackle urban sustainability challenges, and are a big part of the city’s data value chain.

One of the city’s approaches in addressing climate challenges at a local level is the citizen science initiatives at the neighbourhood levels, where the citizens come together to collect data, and use this data to guide decision making on local projects like unhardening the streets and home frontages, mobility planning, among others. This is done within the Leuven Smart City initiative, which is an integral part of the solutions to tackle various climate challenges, including Telraam project, Leuven.cool and Varcities. Leuven has also participated in other European projects like LIFE PACT, where nature-based solutions are adopted by working together with neighbourhood residents.

The city has recently adopted the Smart City Data platform which is an important building block for smart data architecture. Together with two other Belgian cities, the smart city platform will, among other things, bring together real time data from sensors from the three cities, facilitate data sharing and guide data driven decision making. The city’s own Data and GIS department also plays an important role in data management for the city. It maintains the city’s GIS as well as all the data from all the different services of the city that are useful in different climate-related projects. 

Leuven is now one of the 100 cities chosen by the European Commission for the mission '100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030', hereby accelerating its plans to achieve net neutrality. This presents a great opportunity for the USAGE project to contribute to this goal.

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GRAZ

The USAGE assessment of the policy and data status quo in Graz demonstrates:

1. The climate challenges the city is faced with

2.  The policies and initiatives in place to address these

3. The stakeholders involved

4. The needs expressed by stakeholders to help solve the identified climate challenges

5. The realised and potential added value of data and technological tools in supporting climate policy making

So, what are the highlights of this status quo in Graz?

Graz is faced with three key climate challenges: i) Urban Heat Islands & more frequent occurrence of hot days, ii) heavy rainfalls and flooding events, and iiI) bad air quality (PM and nitrogen dioxide) due to the geographical position of Graz in a basin.

Six city policies are of relevance for the development of an urban green deal data space in Graz. While the Energy Masterplan and the sustainable urban mobility plan are older and only address specific sectors, the newer climate mitigation plan and climate adaptation action plan provide a broader view and combine fields to approach climate change. The urban development concept however is a general planning guideline for a sustainable city. Finally, the Graz Digital Agenda sets the guiding principles for digitalisation projects in the city. 

A large array of city departments and external stakeholders is involved in the implementation of these policies and the flagship policy initiative called KIS, the Climate Information System, which is expected to provide a dynamic, constantly updated visualisation of the climate situation in Graz and replace the static urban climate analyses from the years 1986, 1996, 2004 and 2011.

To improve the KIS development and address climate challenges in Graz legal, structural, strategic, informational and technical needs by stakeholders need to be adressed. The needs include a legal framework for coordination, collaboration within city departments, long-term funding, citizen involvement, more climate-relevant data and expertise and a central data platform.

The key added value of data is seen in the agenda setting stage of the climate policy cycle. Data and technology are crucial for understanding complex climate change systems and can identify potentials for improvements within the city.

One of the major challenges moving forward is to develop a commonly used data platform to share data between departments. Additionally, there are currently no central guidelines on data homogenization of sensors or observation stations , which hinders easy data exchange between stakeholders. USAGE could address both issues and support the city with the research results and know-how from other pilot cities. To be successful in these endeavors it will be essential to leverage the network of KIS stakeholders and build on that by involving currently underrepresented stakeholders such as citizens. 

Key findings data status quo

Various initiatives have been undertaken by the city of Graz with regards to data. The city has made available Open Government Data, under the Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive, through its open data portal. The data portal is hosted on a Kubernetes cluster, which is structured like team of computers working together to manage and run applications. It helps ensure that software runs smoothly and efficiently by distributing the workload across multiple machines, allowing for better scalability and reliability. The portal is built with FIWARE is an open-source platform that provides a set of standardized components and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for building smart applications and solutions by offering a common framework that facilitates the integration of different technologies and data sources. Its core component is the Orion Context Broker selected in 2018 by the European Commission as a Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Building Block. This infrastructure is managed by Informationstechnik Graz GmbH (ITG), the internal IT service provider of the City of Graz. The data of the city is still not all available on the data portal, which is one of the challenges that the city seeks to address. The city has a geoportal, where geodata can be viewed, retrieved, and printed through a WebGIS, and are developing a 3D city model for simulations of projects and calculations of flood models, solar potentials among others.

The KIS will take the use of data for climate analyses to the next level for the city. To supplement the existing data, the municipality is engaged in collecting more and high-quality data for use in the KIS. This is done by the City Surveying Office who are responsible for surveying services for the city. Through this office, aerial surveys are conducted to collect LiDAR, thermal and hyperspectral data, from which a large variety of data is extracted. This is done in partnership with Austrian surveying company Vermessung AVT-ZT GmbH (AVT), who carry out photo flights in Europe. Drone flights are also conducted to capture data with higher precision from specific public squares and streets in the city, to facilitate 3D analysis. An expansion of sensor networks is also planned.

As the KIS is being developed, part of it can be viewed on the Digital Atlas of Styria. 

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The full results of the USAGE policy mapping in the pilot cities will be published as part of the report 'Challenge-led system maps' while the analysis of the data context is already available as part of the report 'Status quo assessment' [NB insert link to public deliverable].