About umwelt.info

umwelt.info standardises descriptive information - so-called metadata - of publicly available knowledge on environmental protection and nature conservation thus making this knowledge accessible via our search engine. This metadata is checked for quality, actuality and completeness and can be compared with each other using a defined quality measure. In addition to its functionality as a search engine, umwelt.info offers a range of topic-specific editorial articles that are created on the basis of the integrated metadata.

Our first version of umwelt.info

With the current version of umwelt.info, we are finalising the previous development phases and will go into regular operation from February 2025. 

umwelt.info continues to offer users two core functions. Firstly, a centralised search of publicly available knowledge relating to the environment and nature conservation throughout Germany. The search is not yet exhaustive due to our curation process. Secondly, users will gain an initial insight into the editorial work, which is still being developed in terms of topics and personnel.  

Search the catalogue of environmental and nature conservation knowledgeh

Relevant entries for our portal are map applications, measurement data, research results, educational materials or fact sheets on funding programmes in environmental protection and nature conservation. Users are not only interested in the content itself, but also, for example, its origin or whether it is freely available and can be reused without restrictions. The focus of umwelt.info is on findability and availability of environmental knowledge in the form of data and information. To this end, metadata - such as title, description, licence types, location and time information as well as links to primary sources - are bundled and made accessible via our search engine.

The qualitative evaluation of available knowledge is based on checking the metadata and its compliance with the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) (FAIR Principles on go-fair.org). Our evaluation enables users to assess the reusability of the data and information provided.

Editorial content on data availabililty in the environmental and nature conservation sector

Our editorial team prepares topic-specific content based on the data and information available on umwelt.info. In particular, this content is intended to highlight several aspects of our work revolving around open data. For example, we will describe offers from data sources, bundle important sources for users, visualise the availability of data and information as well as generally invite users to browse our available content.

The first articles provide information about our centre and umwelt.info.

For example, we created a map that displays all groundwater sampling sites in Germany (German) with a link to access the primary information and data used to generate the map. Furthermore, we provide  a GeoJSON formatted file to re-create the map, as well as R- and Python-scripts that can be used to download the actual data (hier müssen die Skripte noch überarbeitet werden!!!). These resources may proof useful for researchers to either conduct research projects, for example on drought in Germany, or to combine the provided date with their own data sets.

How to use umwelt.info

If you need help using the metadata catalogue, please refer to our article on this topic. 

If you would like to contribute your own data or information in our metadata catalogue, we have created an article for you on how to link data.

Who is the target group?

The information provided on umwelt.info aims at various target groups and sectors: civil society, science, the education sector, administration, business and industry. A lot of environmental data and information can be found in specialised databases, some of which are complex to use and often designed for professionally motivated groups as well as experts. In theory, this content is freely accessible to anyone, but in practice it is not easy to find, especially due to the numerous and diverse information. We aim to provide findable and accessible information on environmental and nature conservation topics. 

Politics, researchers, administrative staff, companies and people from civil organisations benefit from this improved availability, processing, linking and evaluation of environmental data. All these data can be accessed via standardised interfaces. Such combinded data creates a potential basis for business models or can be utilised to control environmental infrastructures which can then be fed back into environmental databases. In addition, we offer an environmental education programme consisting of editorial formats such as articles, infographics, podcasts or curated search results.

Current project status

The conceptual phase was completed in summer 2023 with the publication of the implementation concept (German). The feasibility study (German) conducted prior to this determined the current legal, technical and organisational status and analysed the target groups and their individual needs.

In January 2023, the umwelt.info portal was selected as a flagship project of the Digital Strategy Germany (German). Representatives of the advisory board (German), consisting of experts from business, science and civil society, support us in an advisory capacity. To ensure that the portal is developed in an impact-oriented manner from an early stage, Agora Digitale Transformation will continue to support us until the end of 2025 as part of the E-Valuate research project (German). 

A first practical step for the umwelt.info portal was the prototypical implementation of a metadata catalogue incl. a search function in 2023. This open source project is publicly available on OpenCode (Code in English). A low-threshold curation process was also trialled with some data hosting institutions and continuously established for the next implementation steps. By June 2024, 108 information and data sources had been integrated into the search catalogue. 

The launch of the minimum viable product has enabled us to optimise the portal thanks to numerous feedbacks from early users. At the end of January 2025, we started regular operations with a ceremonial launch and are now focussed on further development steps (e.g. for linked open data, AI & machine learning and the development of further information and data offerings).

Feedback on the current version welcome!

Building on the first publicly available minimal implementation (since June 2024), we now offer a fully comprehensive basic implementation with extended search options and editorial content.

We continue to ask for your feedback on our portal so that we can further develop it according to your needs. Please use our contact form.