About the ARSINOE project
ARSINOE aims to create climate resilient-regions through systemic solutions and innovations. The project will shape the pathways to resilience by bringing together the Systems Innovation Approach (SIA) and the Climate Innovation Window (CIW) to build an ecosystem for climate change adaptation solutions. This approach is showcased in nine demonstrators, as a proof-of-concept with regards to its applicability, replicability, potential and efficacy.
Description of success
As part of the project, SustainGraph has been developed in the framework of ARSINOE. As a knowledge graph, it provides a visual way of tracking the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets and the evolution of indicators at national and regional levels – all together as one holistic approach.
It is considered as the basis for the systemic representation of knowledge related to the SDGs, enabling the collection and representation of data while overcoming data management barriers.
SustainGraph supports the development of participatory modelling and analysis processes (e.g., socio-environmental models), taking advantage of the semantic alignment of the represented terms and knowledge from data analysis.
- SustainGraph available online: A mature version of SustainGraph has been developed and available as an open source at a GitLab repository. The open access detailed description of SustainGraph is published at the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. A software library - SDGDetector has been also developed to classify texts with regards to the SDGs and populate the SustainGraph accordingly.
- Neo4j: The development of SustainGraph is based on the Neo4j graph database management technology. A strategic collaboration has been established between the ARSINOE project and the Neo4j community, while the SustainGraph has been presented in a Neo4j live (seen by more than 1 200 people).
- Future developments: With the mature version of SustainGraph created, the project is working on the development of user-friendly interfaces for providing access to scientists and policy makers.
Highlights
- Release of SustainGraph as an open-source knowledge graph.
- SustainGraph populated with data related to the UN SDG indicators, the EU SDG indicators, policy documents, data from case studies, data for hazards and innovation packages.
- Overcame challenges related to data alignment and interoperability around the SDGs, with focus on socio-environmental indicators.
- Further SustainGraph development to assist modelling and analysis processes in the Athens case study in ARSINOE, aiming to tackle the climate change impact related to heatwaves and biodiversity loss.
Outputs
- Publication in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
- ARSINOE deliverable (available upon request).
- Neo4j live with the description of SustainGraph.
Impact
SustainGraph enables users to undertake participatory socio-environmental systems modelling over qualitative and semantically aligned data. This allows them to monitor and assess progress within the case studies to achieve targets based on the tracking of various indicators.
Lessons
- Improvements in data quality in the primary data sources are required to enable data fusion and interoperability.
- The adoption of standardised methods for representation of data across the project is crucial for the extensibility and comparability of the solutions and results.
