New companies often struggle to find a good location to settle in, and post-industrial sites represent an untapped potential for future economic development. In Silesia, the regional government and a local research institute developed a data source on abandoned industrial sites. Spatial development experts and potential investors can now access key information related to more than 1 000 sites in Silesia.
APPROACH
- Development of a user-friendly mapping tool to provide information about degraded post-industrial areas, ensuring a flow of information to investors and thereby overcoming the information scarcity regarding post-industrial sites
ENABLING CONDITIONS
- Availability of EU fund and governmental contribution for the implementation
- Partnership with a local research institute
- Built onto an already existing database of spatial information
CHALLENGES
- Development of database was labour and time intensive
- Challenging updating process and data gathering
- No formal monitoring of use and impact
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Data collection of 1 000 sites
- Approaching target groups (investors, spatial developers)
- Increasing public awareness on the issue
The mapping tool has managed to develop a centralised and open-access database on post-industrial sites that can support and speed-up reclamation processes, spatial planning and help to attract investors to coal mining regions. The key sucess factors of the tool was the partnership with a local academic partner in the development, the mix of financial support from European Union Structural Fund and regional budget as well as the building up the database on an already existing collection of data.
Interested to learn more about the Information Platform for post-industrial and degraded areas in Silesia (OPI-TPP)? Find more Information here.