The “Climate Adaptation Platform for the Alps - CAPA” (www.capa-eusalp.eu) was initially developed by the C3-Alps project and has been re-launched, advanced, further populated with contents and fully deployed in the EUSALP AG8 process in the frame of the AlpGov I project. In the last year, crucial steps have been taken to establish CAPA as the central web-based gateway for climate adaptation information and services in the Alpine countries. It is the only climate adaptation knowledge portal to cover the entire Alpine macro-region and focuses on the specific knowledge needs of Alpine territories from transnational to local scale. CAPA is both the central transnational online directory of resources about climate change adaptation in the Alps and a complete knowledge management infrastructure that intends to bridge the gap between the generation and the actual use of adaptation knowledge. Selection, processing, and organization of contents, platform functionalities and design of the user interface have been tailored to the needs of key target groups of adaptation knowledge: public administration on all levels, municipality actors, and the expert and consultancy community. All knowledge resources (studies, reports, tools, interactive resources etc.) have been selected, edited and quality-checked by experts based on traceable relevance and usefulness criteria. Contents are comprehensive in thematic scope, clearly organized, and easily retrievable. The items in the database cover all sectors relevant to adaptation, all climate change impacts, adaptation measures of various types (green, grey, soft, hybrid), the main target groups, and all fields of knowledge (from climate scenarios to adaptation policies and adaptation in practice) needed in the various process stages of the adaptation policy cycle. A particular focus is put on cross-cutting and cross-sectoral adaptation aspects. All knowledge items are intensively tagged with metadata to allow categorization and pinpoint search. The inventory stores and gives immediate access to currently almost 400 original items in English and all national Alpine languages (GE, FR, IT, Sl). Search results can be viewed, downloaded and printed in varying and progressing detail, ranging from simple record lists to full multi-page metadata records. An accessory map view shows the geographical area covered by the items found by a search. The platform provides two main entry paths offering per-item and dossier-based access:
i) The inventory search gives pinpoint access to an expert-edited directory on a per-item basis, based on form-based search, classified search criteria and supporting customized searches.
ii) Pre-compiled collections of knowledge items with accessory expert commentaries give dossier-based access by adaptation themes (sectors, fields of adaptation knowledge, “hot topics” responding to specific cross-cutting adaptation challenges).
Maintenance of the portal builds on user-driven content enhancement. An online metadata editor allows registered users to enter their own resource into the database and share them with the Alpine community. Registered users can also save and manage their favorite search runs and results sets, compile, edit and (in the future) share their own customized thematic collections. The platform is flexible, extendable and further customizable. Full compliance with the DATAP regime as well as OGC, ISO and INSPIRE standards warrants interoperability with other web portals.
CAPA is managed by the Environment Agency Austria (platform management, contents and quality assurance) and Spatial Services GmbH (hosting, server-side and technical maintenance).
