Environmental information forms the foundation of sustainable development and as such must be easily accessible, freely available, valid and transparent. However, especially with regard to the findability and usability of data and information related to the environment/nature conservation, Germany is not yet meeting this requirement. A high degree of fragmentation of the data/information offer across many different (specialist) portals and providers makes it difficult to find and, in many cases, understand the content. The European Commission has criticised this state of affairs several times since 2017 and suggested setting up a central digital access to data and information in the environmental sector.
In order to remove these hurdles, the Federal Environment Agency is developing the web portal umwelt.info, which the newly established National Centre for Environmental and Nature Conservation Information is responsible for setting up and operating. Based on a metadata catalog with an AI-enriched search function, the platform is intended to create a central access point to all publicly available information in the environmental sector nationwide. The targeted range of information includes environmental metadata, services, reports, research results, expert opinions and educational materials, as well as information on legal and administrative provisions, funding programmes or procedures of environmental administrations. The overarching goal is to improve access to environmental information in Germany as an essential basis for increased environmental awareness and social participation in environmental protection and nature conservation.
While the metadata catalogue with its intelligent, multi-adjustable search function is intended to improve the findability of data and information, the second kernel of the portal - the editorial team - aims at their comprehensibility, clarity and reach. The data and information should be available to all citizens, science, research and education, but also companies and industry as well as administration. The plan is to communicate complex relationships and data in an understandable and interest-arousing way with the help of a wide range of media solutions. For the website discussed here, these initially focus on text-based and visual formats such as articles, lists, tables, static and interactive charts/infographics or sharepics. In the future, this spectrum will also increasingly include audio formats (e.g. podcasts, radio quotes), interactive formats (e.g. quiz applications, scrollytelling) and map-based applications. In addition, the portal provides additional networking and participation elements such as personalizable event calendars, like buttons and a comment function. These aspects are not part of this specification, but should be considered with regard to future integrability.
The web portal umwelt.info is developed as an integrated project using a GitLab instance provided by the AG and operated based on Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) principles. In order to create transparency and to avoid obstacles to participation, the project is implemented as an open source project, i.e. the GitLab instance is publicly accessible and the implementation at the working level takes place with the participation of the interested public.
The objectives of the project can be summarised as follows:
I. A comprehensive corporate design for the National Centre for Environmental and Nature Conservation Information with the associated web portal umwelt.info is to be created, which reflects the nationwide, cross-institutional and content-related character of the project. The aim is to create a contemporary, serious and equally attractive appearance with a high recognition value for different target groups.
II. A framework concept for the website of the portal umwelt.info must be drawn up. This includes recommendations for the implementation of the corporate design from I., for structure/page navigation, for the clear presentation and linking of search results, as well as for the integration of diverse editorial content formats. The latter should be successively expandable. The umwelt.info website should be designed in a professional, appealing design and offer the content specified by the client in a logically structured manner. User-friendliness and findability of the site via search engines have high priority.
III. The umwelt.info website is to be implemented on the basis of Drupal (the latest version at the time of the award of the contract) together with the client in its cloud infrastructure. From the outset, the implementation must be geared towards integration with the existing systems as well as permanent automated operation by the client.
IV. The umwelt.info website should take into account the applicable regulations on compliance with accessibility.
Contract period: approx. 10/2023 to 08/2024
For details, please refer to the service description.