Effective policies should ideally be based on concrete data. One place where policy makers can find that data, for instance, is geoportail.lu. The platform, which previously only provided two-dimensional maps, now also offers three-dimensional maps and remains available not just to ministries and local administrations but also to private individuals.
In order to create a 3D model of Luxembourg, the country was meticulously measured from above. In total, 82 billion reference points were recorded and every single one of them was clearly defined as a tree, building, or street.
Jeff Konnen from Geoportail.lu explains that a lot of data had to be collected to produce the 3D model, including an aerial photograph of the terrain, which Geoportail takes every year in summer, the height of the ground, the facades and shapes of all buildings, and even every single tree in the Grand Duchy.
On geoportail.lu, users can find a wide variety of subject areas, such as water, agriculture, or energy. A new subject area is titled Our Nature Park. According to Eva Rabold from the organisation, knowing where the country’s nature reserves are is important for the work of the biological station.
In the future, the Our Nature Park will use Geoportail.lu during negotiations of management contracts. Rabold explains that farmers can use the nature park’s tab on geoportail.lu to find all the data that they need, thus reducing excessively long wait periods for both sides.
Minister for Spatial Planning Claude Turmes stresses that Geoportail.lu is a platform that is meant to make life easier. In the context of increasingly frequent heatwaves, for instance, Turmes points out that municipalities can use the data available on Geoportail.lu to determine where they can plant new trees.
On average, about 5,000 people use Geoportail.lu every day.
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